Page 99 of Hopelessly Teavoted
“I can see the wheels turning in your head, Hazel, and no. Do not tell him any such thing.” Vickie said it a little more firmly than she meant to, but Hazel’s eyes glinted, undeterred. Time for a subject change. “Listen, things are picking up enough that I need to hire a few more people to work weekend shifts, and maybe some of the busier nights.”
“That’s cool. I’ll let people know.”
“I was thinking of designing a flyer and sending it to the school’s counselor’s office, in addition to printing some out for our bulletin board.” She gestured to the black corkboard, which held an old invitation to a ballroom-themed Halloween party the town had held a few years earlier, and a smattering of advertisements for tutors and babysitting.
“Vickie,” squealed Hazel. Vickie winced a little at thevolume. “Can I make it? I can post it all over. You can put it on all those old-person social medias too.”
“It would be great if you made it, since, according to you, I might need the time to hobble over to AARP for some brochures at the ripe old age of, I don’t know, not even thirty.” She smiled at Hazel, who scoffed.
“You’re old enough to buy beer legally and I think maybe also old enough to know which beer doesn’t taste like ass? I’m not 100 percent sure, but in my book, that means you’re relatively mature.”
Vickie smiled. Hazel was great.
The girl gasped a little. “Speaking of old hotties, isn’t that Mr. Hart’s sister, with the Kate Sharma look-alike? Sapphic Kanthony goals there—my heart.”
“Hazel, what have I told you about writing fanfic about customers?”
Hazel giggled and waggled her eyebrows.
“That you support young people writing things?”
Vickie sighed.
Priscilla and Evelyn swooped into the shop, hands entwined, though not standing quite so close together as they had when Vickie had first met the councilwoman.
“Two honey cinnamon lattes and one of each of the muffins to go, please, Victoria.” Evelyn pretended to be interested in an advertisement on the corkboard, and Prissy leaned in.
Clearly, this had been orchestrated.
“Come to dinner at the house tonight, Vickie.” Priscilla’s brown eyes bore into her. Her dark hair was in a single braid, over the white collar of a black dress shirt tucked into jeans that looked more expensive than the entirety of Hopelessly Teavoted and all the real estate on Main Street combined. “We need to talk about what Azrael found.”
“I, ah…” Vickie blushed, hoping Hazel wasn’t listening too closely. “Yes. I can do that.”
Prissy’s matte red lips pulled into a tight line across her pale face, and in a full pantsuit, Evelyn looked all business.
“He misses you,” Evelyn said, and then leaned in, speaking quietly enough that no one would overhear. “And, as a NACoW representative, I must remind you that at this point, I’ll have to file a report if we can’t wrap this up. But I do think we can solve this together, the four of us.” Evelyn’s phone buzzed, and she stepped away from the counter again. Priscilla glared at her, crossed her arms, and frowned.
“Sorry, she does that a lot. Council business. But I convinced her to hold off on reporting just a little bit longer, so we do this tonight. If the Council finds out about it before we can, they’ll want to isolate and protect anyone involved that could be tempting to the megachurch.” She looked meaningfully at Vickie. “As a Hart, Azrael is already high profile, but if they connect the dots and realize he’s close to the perp? They’d isolate him for his own safety. And that would likely take untilafterthe end of the month.”
Which meant they’d quarantine him until after Halloween. Prissy, too, probably, although she didn’t have any time-sensitive curses riding on her, at least not that Vickie was aware of.
The tension hung heavy in the air.
“I’m closing up at eight. I’ll be by after.” Vickie was trying to speak quietly, but there were few whispers soft enough to evade Hazel’s curiosity.
“Ah, boss, we are never busy Sunday evenings. I’ll close. You head out at six. I can use the extra cash anyway.” Hazel butted in, looking all too eager, and Priscilla’s smile curled upward. “All those romance novels aren’t going to buy themselves,” the girl said, her eyes wide with feigned innocence.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said.
The house welcomed her more eagerly this time, and she wondered if it could sense that something had shifted.
Azrael’s eyes had circles under them, but he looked happy to see her, as though he, too, knew that something had changed. “Vickie,” he said. “I think it’s Chet. He’s got no other reasonto be going into that church. I have heard him brag to several other department members about how he’s a deist, like Benjamin Franklin. Why would he be going into that church otherwise? The whole time, it’s been Chet. We can go tonight, with Prissy and Evelyn. Pay off your debt to Lex. You can be free to do whatever you want, or whatever you don’t want.”
He snapped his fingers, and a pair of cocktails appeared on the end table.
She pressed a hand against the door behind her, smiling at the warmth of it, the relief of finally knowing.
Not just about who the real villain was, but about what she wanted.
