Page 60 of Ashes of Us
Turning quickly, Danica saw it was D’Arcy behind her and let out an embarrassed laugh. “Calling me?” She looked down at the notebook in her hand again. “You could be right. I'm not usually one for journals, so the fact that I can't seem to walk away must be a sign.”
“Given what you've been through in the last couple of months, maybe your subconscious needs to get things out.” Shereached out and picked up a pen designed to look like a raven's feather and laid it on top of the notebook, smiling at her. “I'm D’Arcy. I heard Maverick say your name earlier and wanted to say hello.”
“Danica Preston.” She shifted the things in her hands and held it out to shake D’Arcy’s. “I was going to introduce myself, but you were helping a customer.”
“Yeah, we have mostly returning customers here, so they all know us pretty well and like to talk.” She gestured subtly toward the registers where Antonia was still dealing with the white-haired woman. “Like Nancy over there. She's very sweet and likes to come in and talk shop under the guise of returning items. Funnily enough, only with Antonia, despite her not knowing much about spells.”
“Isn't she the owner?” Danica asked curiously, her eyes going over the short woman again. “She's not Wiccan or into witchcraft?”
“She inherited the shop from her mom,” D'Arcy explained. “It used to be more of a tourist gift shop back then, given Salem's history with witches, but it also carried spell ingredients and other items that practicing witches used. When Antonia took over, she made it a proper supply shop because she's a really great businesswoman who understands supply, demand and location.”
Nodding thoughtfully, Danica realized she hadn't thanked Darcy for the basket and turned back to her. “Thank you so much for the basket, by the way. It was nice to know that people who know nothing about me were thinking of me.”
“You're important to Maverick, Mave is important to Toni, Raven and Jynx, and they're important to me.” She shrugged. “It was nothing.”
“Nothing to you, but it meant a lot to me.” Danica corrected her, wanting her to know she had truly appreciated what they had done, then paused, confused again. “I'm important to Mave?” The knowledge made her happier than she thought it would. She had thoroughly enjoyed having him around and in her corner for the last few weeks, so hearing she was important was very nice to know. She grinned as she looked over and found him following Emilia around the boutique, holding the clothes that she had picked out for her.
“In the last year, I've gotten to know him pretty well, and he's had a few cases that he's talked about in passing.” D'Arcy followed her gaze and chuckled as she watched him. “He always goes out of his way to help his clients however he can, but he's never arranged for someone to get a dog from K9, talked so much about a case, and looked for advice on different angles to investigate or asked our thoughts on how he could help before.”
“He did an incredible job.” Danica couldn't help but gush about Maverick's work. “I'm so glad my lawyer suggested him, even if we didn't need him to testify in the end, the information he was able to find out for me was very helpful in getting me some closure.” She smiled and had to ask, because she'd been curious since Maverick told her about D’Arcy. “He said you were a grey witch and do karma spells?”
“I'm what's known as a grey witch,” D’Arcy confirmed, looking amused. “And I would say what I do is more like encourage karma to bring about justice, whatever that looks like.” She smiled faintly. “The rule of three is fundamental in witchcraft, so you have to be careful about your intentions. Whatever you put out comes back to you times three, so when I put an intention out, I'm not asking for something specific to happen; I'm asking justice and karma to right what's beenwronged. Things like lies coming to light or consequences for their actions.”
“Huh.” Danica glanced down at the items in her hands and thought about that. “Does it work?”
“Who knows?” D'Arcy chuckled. “That is the question, though, was it my spell or was it going to happen anyway? But what it does do is give people a sense of control over a situation or help them move on; that's what's important.”
Danica decided in that moment that she really liked D'Arcy. She was easy to talk to and didn't seem to take her beliefs as something that was set in stone. She understood that just because something happened didn't mean she was the one who made it happen, and it was more about what those rituals did for you than the results. She was about to ask more about the sense of control when her phone rang, interrupting her. Pulling it out of her bra, she saw it was Sergeant Galvin and felt her heart rate pick up. “I need to take this.” She looked around for a place to put her items down, and D'Arcy reached out, taking them from her.
“I'll put them at the register for you,” she told her quietly as Danica thanked her and answered the phone, walking toward the door.
“Sergeant Galvin?” She pushed open the door and stepped into the warm sunlight onto the sidewalk. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, it's better than okay.” Galvin sounded like he was about to let out a whoop of joy. “Lucy Gamache was arrested early this morning for breaking and entering.”
Danica froze, her eyes widening as her knees went weak and she stumbled to a bench to sit down. “You're joking!” She exclaimed as the Sergeant let out a booming laugh.
“Nope. She was picked up at three-thirty this morning after a silent alarm was triggered at Fenway Fertility and Wellness.” He responded gleefully. “She was caught red-handed searching the cold storage room. Refused to give her name and, of course, had no ID on her. However, it seems Ms. Gamache had issues with sticky fingers in her teen years, and her fingerprints were on file from an arrest when she was fifteen. She was found guilty and given community service, but neither she nor her parents tried to have the record expunged, so even though the record was sealed, her fingerprints were still on file. I was notified when I got in for my shift since I'm part of the joint investigative team looking into things regarding her potentially sexually assaulting your husband, confirmed her identity, and just got out of the interview room with her.”
“Did she admit to anything?” Danica leaned back, staring up at the sky as she fought down the laughter that was bubbling in her chest.
“Not a thing, kept saying she didn't know why we were arresting her since she only wanted what was rightfully hers, denied breaking in the building, despite having her on camera breaking a window in the back of the building and climbing in, denied sexually assaulting your husband, insisting they slept together and he wanted the child, then said she wanted a lawyer and refused to speak anymore.” Now she could tell he was annoyed by that, but it didn't diminish his happiness at finally having her in custody. “Pretty sure her lawyer will want to plead insanity, but at least that means she will have to see a psychiatrist to get a diagnosis.” Danica didn't know what to say and just shook her head.
“I know this is probably obvious, but she was looking for Jasper's sperm, wasn't she?” She really hoped she hadn't beenable to find it, but if she had, she hoped it had been accidentally destroyed.
“She was, didn't manage to find it, though. Apparently, the clinic has a special storage area for reproductive material under court orders.” He explained cheerfully. “Which happens more often than you'd think but usually involves couples who were struggling to conceive for one reason or another and ended up divorcing or separating. One of them wants a child or another child and tries to claim the embryo, stating it's half their genetic material, and the other blocks it because they don't want to be on the hook for child support, or their new partner doesn't want them to have more children with their ex's.”
“Makes sense.” Danica could see lots of situations where that would be the case. She let out a long, slow sigh of relief and thanked the Sergeant for all his work on this and for keeping her informed. He promised to keep her in the loop, and they said their goodbyes. Danica remained sitting on the bench for another minute, then sent a text to Alex, filling him in and went inside to tell Emilia and Maverick.
Chapter Forty-Seven: Crossed Lines
The next three weeks flew by for Danica. The audits on the hotels in Seattle and Charlotte were quick and to the point, with Alex only making some minor suggestions and changes to policies so they were on par with the Boston hotels, explaining the renovation plan and schedule to the managers and getting to know them. He admitted to Danica on the flight to Charlotte that he knew the hotels were in mostly good shape. The audits were more about getting to know the management and staff at each hotel and listening to their concerns and suggestions after reviewing emails between his father and the managers in Nashville and Orlando, plus wanting to get rid of Craig. He explained he didn't want anyone feeling targeted or attacked so it was better to do them all and mix the problem ones in among the others, because he knew the managers would talk about the audits amongst each other and wanted the problem to be told it was easy and not a big deal at all so they would relax and not be hostile.
Danica wasn't sure what happened with Heidi at the restaurant. Alex told her to block her on her cell phone on theflight to Seattle and said he would handle Heidi when she found out he wasn't going to show up. She had asked him Tuesday morning over breakfast if he had heard from his ex the night before, but he just nodded and told her he had taken care of it; she was going back to London and wouldn't bother them anymore.
They were eating dinner at a brewery on their last night in Charlotte with the manager and assistant manager of the hotel on their last night, with Danica watching in amusement as the manager, a woman in her late forties named Jaime, continued to not so subtly attempt to flirt with Alex, asking lots of very personal questions and letting her frequent touches of his arm linger too long, something that had gone on all week. She wasn't sure if Alex was oblivious or just didn't care, because he would give a vague answer and ignore her touchiness. The assistant manager looked like she was in physical pain every time Jaime would giggle girlishly and run her hand over Alex's bicep, making Danica think it wasn't unusual behaviour from her.
They were about to order dessert when Alex excused himself to take a phone call, and Jaime announced she had to run to the bathroom. Danica raised her eyebrow as Jaime followed Alex, walking in the opposite direction of the restrooms and turned to the assistant manager, a woman around her age named Constance, surprised to see she was sitting with her tomato-red face in her hands. “Are you okay?”
