witches of cleopatra hill 07 - impractical magic Read online

“Thanks, Eileen,” Colin told her. Yes, one could argue that her description could have fit a lot of girls, but it also fit Danica Wilcox perfectly. “And the men you saw with her in the parking lot that day?”

  “Well, two of them were Matías Escobar’s accomplices. I remember that because I saw their pictures in the paper, too. But the others….” She shrugged, pretending a nonchalance Colin was pretty sure she didn’t actually feel. Once again he glimpsed that flicker of worried confusion in her face, as if she thought she should know the answer to the question but didn’t. “I know one was tall and good-looking, and the other one was much shorter and a little chubby. I can’t remember any details, though.”

  “It’s all right,” Colin said, hoping he sounded more or less reassuring. “Did those two men seem to be with Escobar’s accomplices?” He hoped to hell they weren’t connected. Otherwise, the Tucson P.D. might have missed a very important clue, and there could still be several very dangerous men out on the street.

  “I don’t think so. Not that I remember, anyway,” she replied, the exasperation clear in her voice this time. “I should remember. It’s not like me to forget things like that.”

  He believed her. Sure, parts of her story sounded pretty far-fetched, but he’d interviewed enough certifiable crazies to know that Eileen Kosky was definitely not crazy. “Let’s go back to Alex and Caitlin,” he said gently. “Do you remember anything else they did?”

  “No. I think they talked to the other girl, the one Matías had with him.”

  And who the heck she’d been, Colin couldn’t figure out. A friend of Danica’s, maybe?

  Eileen paused for a moment, another of those frowns pulling at her brows. “I got the feeling she and Alex Trujillo were related somehow. Their coloring and bone structure….”

  “His sister?” Colin asked. If Escobar had been trying to make off with Trujillo’s baby sister, Colin could understand why the young man might have attacked him with…whatever that was. He still believed that it had to have been some kind of Taser, or maybe a stun gun, and Eileen Kosky had amplified the effects in her mind to make them sound a lot more spectacular than they’d actually been in real life.

  “Maybe. Since I couldn’t really hear what they were saying, I don’t know for sure.”

  “And you don’t remember what happened afterward, how you got into the store?”

  “Well, I’m sure my own two feet carried me in there,” she replied, sounding irritated enough that he knew he’d touched a nerve. “But otherwise, no. It’s like those shows where people get kidnapped by aliens and lose minutes or even hours of their lives.”

  “Do you think you were kidnapped by aliens?” he asked, unable to keep a hint of amusement out of his voice.

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “I don’t believe in that sort of thing. But something very strange happened in that parking lot, and it seemed like the sort of thing someone should know about. I thought of you, because you were the one who wrote all those stories about Matías Escobar in the first place. But if you don’t believe me — ” She began to rise from her chair, and Colin immediately put out a placating hand.

  “I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” he said. “It’s just my job to ask questions.”

  Those words seemed to mollify her somewhat, and she sat back down. “So you’ll look into it?”

  “I think it bears looking into,” he replied. As outlandish as her story sounded, elements of it intrigued him. Who was the Hispanic girl, and who were the two men who’d been talking to Alex Trujillo and Caitlin McAllister? Why hadn’t Danica tried to get away from her captors?

  He’d have to start poking around on his own time, though; he knew that Ned Tavener, his editor, would never give him permission to start investigating a case that involved weird blue flashes of light and missing time. No, he’d probably make a caustic remark about possibly looking into a position at the National Enquirer, and there would go the office and title Colin had worked so hard to earn. “But it might take some time. Do you have a number where I can reach you?”

  “Better to email me,” she said. “EileenK589 at Gmail.” Apparently noting his raised eyebrows, she said crisply, “I do know how to operate a computer, Colin. I just don’t like typing on my phone because the keypad is so darn small.”

  “Well, I have to agree with you on that one,” he said, smiling. “So I’ll email you, Eileen, if I come up with anything that might help explain what you saw in the parking lot that day.”

  “Thank you.” This time she did get up from her chair. “Thank you for taking me seriously.”

  “Not a problem.”

  She let herself out, and Colin’s smile faded. He turned back to his computer, then went to the paper’s website and navigated to the lifestyle page. There was the online version of Caitlin McAllister and Alex Trujillo’s wedding announcement, only this time with the photo in color.

  Yes, Caitlin’s hair was red after all. Very red. Well, with a last name like McAllister, he supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised that she’d have such stereotypical Scottish coloring. Hell, for all he knew, maybe she was distantly related to him, generations and generations back. His family had come over in the early 1800s, but still….

  He leaned back in his chair, staring at the photo. Saturday, the twelfth of November. The day after tomorrow. He knew St. Augustine’s well enough; it wasn’t that far from the Daily Sun’s offices. Not that he usually worked on Saturdays, but….

  A grin pulled at his mouth, and he navigated away from the web page with the McAllister/Trujillo announcement on it. After all, it was probably better that no one here at the paper knew what he was planning.

  Because it sure looked like he was about to crash a wedding.

  2

  Trapped in the carefully controlled madness of the dressing room area at St. Augustine’s, Jenny McAllister wondered — not for the first time — just what the hell she’d been thinking, volunteering to be Caitlin’s maid of honor.

  On the surface, her decision to take on that role had seemed like the obvious thing to do. She and Caitlin were cousins, after all, and who better to step into Roslyn’s shoes than her own sister? Yes, Caitlin and Danica Wilcox were closer friends, but at the time Jenny had made the offer, Danica hadn’t seemed capable of doing much beyond tying her own shoes. Now, of course, she was doing much better, but….

  You will not go there, she told herself. You will not begrudge Danica her happiness, not after everything she went through.

  Easier said than done. Jenny didn’t have anything against Danica…except maybe a small, unpleasant undercurrent of resentment that Danica had managed to survive Matías Escobar’s torments, whereas Jenny’s own beautiful sister Roslyn had not…but still, it sometimes hurt to see how happy Danica was now, with her handsome fiancé and her now seemingly perfect life. True, she’d had to travel back in time more than a hundred years to find her Mr. Perfect, but still….

  On days like this, it seemed as if the phrase “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” had been carefully crafted to stick in her craw. Jenny had been either a bridesmaid or a maid of honor in five other weddings before this one, and she vowed this would be the last time. It definitely didn’t help that she was an anomaly in her own witch clan, a woman who was on the wrong side of twenty-nine and still unmarried. Witches and warlocks tended to marry young, some sixth sense telling them who their “one” was while they were still in their early twenties, but Jenny had never been that lucky.

  “Have you seen Great-Aunt Ruby’s earrings?” Caitlin asked, sounding panicked. She was dressed, hair done, and looking so beautiful in her ivory silk gown with its re-embroidered lace that Jenny knew she needed to push her gloomy thoughts aside and focus on the person this day was really about. “I’ve looked and looked — ”

  “They’re in that little crystal tray on the dressing table,” Jenny said calmly. That was what maids of honor were supposed to be — calm and in control, and also able to let the bride know that
no crisis would arise that couldn’t be handled. All right, a wedding planner could probably fulfill that same role, but no McAllister bride had ever hired a wedding planner, and Caitlin had decided she didn’t want to be a trailblazer when it came to that sort of thing, even though she’d mentioned once or twice that she would have preferred to hand some of the work off to someone else, since she was trying to organize the wedding while also going to school full time.

  And then there was that matter of Alex putting a wedding announcement in the local paper. One could argue that no one paid attention to those sorts of things except the families of the people actually getting married, and so it really wasn’t that big a deal, but it just hadn’t seemed like a very good idea to Jenny, or to the McAllister elders, either, not when the survival of the witch clans had always depended on keeping a low profile. They’d advised against it, but Caitlin had just shrugged and said that because Alex had a prominent position at a local television station, it made sense for them to make the announcement.

  Well, done was done. Jenny watched as Caitlin slipped Great-Aunt Ruby’s diamond and rose gold drops into her ears, then made a minute adjustment to the delicate band of filigreed copper that held back her carefully curled hair.

  “You look gorgeous,” Jenny said sincerely. The faintly blush-toned ivory of the strapless wedding gown suited Caitlin’s coloring perfectly, where pure white probably would have washed her out. And Jenny had to admit that Caitlin had been kind to her bridesmaids, choosing simple sheath dresses in a dark coral hue that almost anyone could carry off. The color suited Danica’s near-black hair and hazel eyes just as well as it did Jenny’s own honey-blonde tresses and blue-gray eyes.

  “I do?” Caitlin asked, sounding somewhat surprised.

  “Like you stepped out of a magazine.”

  Danica came into the room then, carrying the box that held the bouquets. They were simple bunches of creamy white roses, with just a kiss of the softest coral pink around the edges of their petals. Behind her was Alicia Trujillo, Alex’s little sister, who was the third bridesmaid.

  “It looks like pretty much everyone is settled in,” Alicia said. “So if you’re ready, Caitlin — ”

  Caitlin pulled in a deep breath, then nodded. “I’m ready. I mean, I don’t feel ready, but — ”

  “It’ll be fine,” Jenny said. “It always is.”

  She’d spoken those words of reassurance as a way of reminding Caitlin that there had been plenty of McAllister weddings before this, and there would be plenty after, and they always went off more or less without a hitch. That was part of the beauty of having witch blood; if you had the whole clan focusing their energies on making sure you had a perfect day, that was pretty much what would happen.

  Also, it probably didn’t hurt that Mr. “Lucky” Lucas Wilcox himself was here, too, part of the Wilcox contingent that had come down with Danica. Having him around basically ensured that everything would go exactly as planned.

  Caitlin gulped in another swallow of air, then nodded. “I’m fine. It’ll be fine. I mean, it’s just Alex.”

  Alicia raised an eyebrow at that, and Caitlin hurried on, “Oh, you know what I mean. We’ve been living together for months now. It’s not like he’s going to change into someone else. He’s just…my Alex.”

  Pulling Caitlin’s bouquet out of the box, Danica said dryly, “Then go marry the boy. Let him make an honest woman of you.”

  That remark made Caitlin chuckle. “Don’t tell me being with Robert’s made you all prudish and Victorian.”

  “Hardly.” A wicked light danced in Danica’s eyes, and she added, “He may be from the Victorian era, but a prude he is most definitely not.”

  Jenny decided she’d heard enough, and was wondering how to steer the conversation in another direction when the universe appeared to take pity on her. She heard the first strains of the organist playing Pachelbel’s “Canon,” signaling that it was time for the girls to get into position. “Okay, everyone,” she said, “grab your bouquets and get ready to go. It’s showtime.”

  There was a brief flurry of activity after that, but the group managed to get out of the dressing room and over to the entrance of the chapel, where they lined up in the proper order. Just across the way, Jenny caught a glimpse of Alex’s older brother, Diego, grinning at her. Damn, there was a good-looking man. Too bad he was married.

  Of course he is, she thought then. All the good ones are.

  But she didn’t have time to brood over that sad fact, because Diego was linking his arm in hers and guiding her down the red carpet runner that led to the altar. The space was scented with the fragrance of roses and lilies, with something smoky and warm behind it. Probably traces of leftover incense; this was a very thoroughly Catholic church. And Caitlin and Alex would be married in a Catholic ceremony, something her parents hadn’t been too thrilled about. But the de la Paz clan were both witches and fairly devout Catholics, whereas the McAllisters were a lot more freewheeling when it came to religion. Caitlin had said she didn’t mind, that Alex respected her own beliefs and wouldn’t try to force anything on her, and so she was perfectly happy to follow his family’s traditions when it came to their wedding.

  At least the services weren’t being conducted in Latin. Did they even do that anymore? Jenny had to admit that her knowledge of the Catholic Church’s practices was kind of foggy. Anyway, that sort of thing would have made her eyes glaze right over. As it was, she let her attention wander while the priest seemed to talk interminably, using what she couldn’t help thinking of as the Webster’s unabridged wedding ceremony text.

  The church really was quite lovely, with its lofty dark-beamed ceilings and stained-glass windows. Back in Jerome, weddings were held everywhere from people’s homes to hotel meeting rooms to fancy restaurants. Not churches all that much, so it was interesting to look at the architecture. The cathedral did make a rather spectacular setting, and Jenny could see why Alex had chosen this particular venue.

  More interesting, though, was the people-watching. The de la Paz clan was very large, much bigger than the McAllister family, so their side of the church was packed to the gills. Even so, a good number of them must have had to stay home. Jenny wondered how that had been handled. Some kind of lottery? Or had Luz Trujillo, the new prima of the de la Paz clan and Alex’s mother, helped Alex and Caitlin make those determinations based on how closely related a particular witch or warlock was to the groom?

  Jenny hadn’t been involved in that part of the process, so she really didn’t have any idea. She did know that five hundred people had been invited, and it sure looked as if they were all here. There wasn’t an empty space in any of the pews, not even the ones on the McAllister side, which also boasted a good number of Wilcoxes. Right there in front, sitting next to Caitlin’s parents, were Angela and Connor Wilcox. True, Angela had been born a McAllister, but she still carried the Wilcox name now that she was married to Connor.

  And she’s half Wilcox anyway, Jenny thought, since it turned out her father was a Wilcox, too.

  Some McAllisters still weren’t entirely thrilled about that turn of events, nor the ongoing integration of the two clans, which had been enemies for generations. Actually, at first Jenny had been pleased by the thaw in relations between the Wilcoxes and the McAllisters. After all, a lot of the Wilcox men were awfully good-looking.

  Unfortunately, she hadn’t had any more luck making a connection with one of them than she’d had with those of her McAllister cousins considered distant enough to be safe to marry.

  Or the civilians she’d dated, thinking maybe that was the answer. Her own mother was a civilian, a non-witch, and her parents’ marriage was still going strong, some thirty-plus years later. But Jenny had somehow managed to strike out with the civilians, too.

  Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, but trying not to be too obvious about it, Jenny let her gaze wander back over to the de la Paz side of the church. Yes, Diego Trujillo was married. That didn’t mean th
ere probably weren’t plenty of eligible men in that clan. Or maybe not, if they all tended to get married as early as the McAllisters did.

  Among that sea of almost uniformly raven-hued heads, someone’s warm brown hair caught her eye. Jenny looked more closely, and hoped it wouldn’t seem as if she was staring. Yes, the man sitting in the back pew definitely didn’t look like a de la Paz. In fact, with his mid-brown hair and fair skin, he looked far more like a McAllister, although she knew she’d never seen him before. She would have remembered him. Handsome, but in a rugged yet boyish way. His jacket looked slightly rumpled, too, as if he’d retrieved it from the depths of his closet for this special occasion and hadn’t bothered to steam out the wrinkles.

  Maybe a friend of Alex’s from college? She supposed that was possible, although the stranger looked older than Alex, probably past thirty, and so a few years older than she was. Well, that still didn’t mean anything. She’d never gone to college; until Wilcox territory opened up during the past few years, there hadn’t been a four-year university it was easy for a McAllister to attend, but she knew not everyone headed straight to college right after high school. That could explain why the stranger looked like he had a good five years or so on Alex.

  Even so, something about him didn’t feel right to her. The unknown man was watching the ceremony intently, but she noticed he sat as close to the end of the pew as possible, as if he wanted to keep away from his neighbors. Not that Jenny could really blame him, since a couple of squirmy kids who looked like they were around kindergarten age also occupied that pew, and were only separated from the stranger by an exasperated-looking mother.

  But at least they weren’t so noisy that they interrupted the ceremony. Alex and Caitlin were so wrapped up in each other and the words they were saying that they probably wouldn’t have even noticed that kind of disruption, but, judging by the way Luz Trujillo’s dark gaze kept flicking toward the back of the church, the prima of that clan most definitely would notice, and would most likely would have had a few words with the mother about keeping her kids in line.