Page 47 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
“Why me?”
“Because he’s so hot for you.”
Mateo pulls up the last text from Topher, but his phone starts chirping before he hits Call.
The caller ID readsSlick as Shit.
“It’s Ethan!” he yells for no reason.
“Speakerphone!” Ophelia yells, also for no reason.
Mateo hits speakerphone and answers. “Hey!” Too loud. Bring it down. “Hi. Hello.” It’s not that he’s excited to talk to Ethan or anything, but this is something happening after hours of nothing happening. It’s a coincidence that he’s avoiding all eye contact with Ophelia right now.
A pause on the line—probably laughing at him—before Ethan says, “Hey to you. And wow, the nerve. Trying to skip town without showing me your magic tricksandstealing my favorite jacket?”
“Dick move, I know.” Mateo bodily turns from Ophelia, as if that makes a difference when it’s speakerphone. It’s awkward to talk with her hearing every flirty thing Ethan says. “My flight’s soon, but I think I can leave it at the front desk. In exactly the same condition you last saw it in. Which means it smells like chlorine because I’m scared to try to clean it.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. We’re close to wrapping things up with Topher,” Mateo lies.
Another pause on the call. “You know baby Nystrom’s in jail, right?”
Now Mateo meets Ophelia’s equally startled eyes. She tosses the wet, cheese-less pizza dough she was about to bite onto the table, wipes her hands on the rug like an animal, and drags her laptop to herself.
“What?” Mateo says, crawling off the couch to peer over Ophelia’s shoulder as she starts searching for local news.
“Coverage started a few hours ago. Said he was brought in for questioning and then arrested,” Ethan says.
On Ophelia’s screen is a closed caption video of a perky Californian with platinum blond hair. Topher’s face sits in the upperright corner, like one of those night mode stills of a raccoon in someone’s trash. Mateo reads the headline below the picture three times before it registers correctly.Trust Fund Murderer.
“Who’d he murder?” Mateo asks slowly, touching Ophelia’s screen like that’ll help or prove anything. She opens a second video, and a slim guy with too much gel in his hair makes a perfect Hollywood-concerned-face as he says something about the charges.
“His mother,” Ethan says as the screen doubles down with a caption:San Francisco native charged with killing mother.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Topher’s phone gets through half a ring before a voice picks up. “Mateo?” A guy. Not Topher. Takes Mateo a second to place the voice because he’s never heard it through a phone.
“Quincy?”
“Why’d you wait so long to call?” Hella accusatory.
Ophelia’s eyes meet Mateo’s across the now empty pizza box.
“Hewas supposed to callme,” Mateo defends. Quincy’s tone is understandable but alarming because it’s on edge to a degree not present even when dealing with Mateo’s broken neck situation. “We saw the news. What the hell is happening?”
What the hell was happening: Quincy had gotten Topher to the station, no problem. Just as he pulled over, preparing to let Topher out, the car was swarmed by police. Like they’d been waiting for him—a black Mercedes-Benz isn’t a rarity in the fancy areas of San Francisco, though, so they had to know what Topher looked like. Topher had the presence of mind to chuck his phone at Quincy, and Quincy had the presence of mind to jam it into his jacket pocket covertly. Which made them bothgeniuses but also marked the end of anything Quincy knew about Topher’s arrest directly. He said he was a normal rideshare driver and had been prepared to show the sticker, but they hadn’t cared about him, just told him to leave.
After having an existential crisis in his car—Mateo’s interpretation, not Quincy’s words—Quincy had gone inside and tried to ask if the lawyer, a Mr. Moreau, had shown up. Whoever was working the desk didn’t know he was the driver from the earlier thing, thought he was there about an accident, and said Mr. Moreau was probably at Saint Francis. Quincy called the hospital, lied, and eventually got someone to tell him that Mr. Moreau hadn’t made it. Meaning Topher’s lawyer was in a fatal car accident while he was on the way to meet Topher.
That was over four hours ago.
Quincy, unsure of their flight time, had gone back to his house with Topher’s phone, failed at guessing the password enough times to stop trying it in fear he’d brick it, and waited for them to call.
They sit on the open line for a full minute without comment, Ophelia’s hands pressed over her mouth and eyes locked on her screen where she’d paused it on Topher’s gaunt-faced mugshot. The idea of this pale, scrawny guy getting a mugshot is insane. The thought of him sitting in an actual jail cell is impossible. It’s like he’s been told that someone shot a goose into space. There’s just no reason. Why would you do that to a goose?
A flush heats Mateo’s skin, something between outrage and naked fear taking hold. This is so beyond bad. This is their-goose-is-in-outer-space levels bad. “We all know there’s no way he killed his mom, right?” He has to ask.
