Page 46 of Midnight Waters

Easily the most dull task of the entire business, inventory would take a whole day if I let it. Kira and Allison didn’t just make for good company, but if I bossed them around enough, they helped me cut down the time I was stuck in the back room by half.

“That’s the only thing you signed up for, wasn’t it?” Allison counted the new shipment as she sat on the floor surrounded by masks in new packaging.

“When I paid for this thing, they told me I could bang. I’m allowed to be mad,” Kira huffed.

“We’re probably not allowed until the third date,” I said, scribbling down numbers.

Kira narrowed her eyes at me. “How do you know?”

My cheeks flushed, and Kira grinned. Nothing I said now was going to fool them.

“You tried to do it, didn’t you?” she said, chuckling.

Well, there was only one way out of this situation.

“Who wants lunch?” I slapped the clipboard down on the crate and stood. “On me.”

“Oh, come on.” Kira folded her arms as I locked up the back room. “You don’t have to be embarrassed around us.”

“I’m not.” I pushed them both out through the front door and down the street. “But if my dad overhears us, I’m going to get an inquisition like you’ve never seen.”

He was out on another tourist dive until after lunch, but he had a habit of appearing out of nowhere and completely unexpected.

I linked arms with them and we made our way toward the main street of Newferry. It didn’t have quite the array of lunch spots as Dawn, but we had a few favourites to choose from.

Newferry had tourists in mind, with merchandise spilling out of colourful storefronts. Delis and restaurants threw their doors and windows open, allowing plumes of rainbow mist to spread through the street.

I inhaled a breath tinged with the scent of spaghetti Bolognese. Those magical clouds smelled of whatever you craved, whether you knew it or not.

Kira steered us into the third place we encountered, jabbering about croissants. We ordered some drinks at the bar and Allison tried to sit down near the window, but I shook my head and jerked my chin toward the back.

I needed some privacy if I was going to talk to them openly.

“It’s dark back here.” Allison screwed up her nose as we sat down.

“Yeah, well, deal with it. I need to bounce some ideas off you,” I said as I slid to the end of the booth.

“Sex advice?” Kira leaned across the table, waggling her eyebrows at me.

“Please, bestow all your wisdom upon me,” I said, deadpan. “No, idiot, I’m at a dead end with Tyler’s murder.”

And no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t work out what the next step was.

“All you had was a potential motive, anyway. Would it even have helped that much?” Allison said, tearing open a sugar packet and pouring it into her glass of water.

Dryads had some weird dietary habits. Sugar water wasn’t even the strangest. Allison and all her family were vegetarian. I loved seafood too much to even consider it.

“More than zilch would have.” I rested my elbows on the table on either side of my lemonade. “The only thing I actually know is that someone murdered Tyler. That’s it.”

“What would you do if this was work?” Kira asked, stirring her drink with a metal straw. “Or would you not get into any of the investigation at all?”

“That’s for the detectives,” I said. “We would just scout for any evidence around the body, bag it up, and…”

My eyes glazed over.

Evidence. Nobody had asked me to look around the location of the body for evidence, because Mallory had deemed Tyler’s death an accident even before the autopsy.

A tingling sensation on my arm drew my attention, and the faintest glow pulsed underneath my jacket. I placed my hand on top of the glow to conceal it. If Kira or Allison knew someone with luck powers, I didn’t want to know. I’d tell them when I found out who William really was.

---