Casting Spells by Barbara Bretton Read Free Book Online Page A

scarf.”
    I pushed back the image. “CPR?”
    She shrugged her shoulders.
    “Did they call 911?”
    “All I know is what they told me on the phone.”
    “Have them fax you a police report.”
    “No cops, no police report.”
    “You mean no cops on the scene?”
    “I mean no cops at all. Sugar Maple doesn’t have a police force.”
    “They have to have some kind of police presence.”
    “Why?” She glanced at her computer screen. “According to this, they don’t have any crime. No burglaries. No shoplifting. No fender benders. Their kids don’t even TP the trees on Devil’s Night. This drowning is the first incident of any kind reported within town limits for over eighty years.”
    “Bullshit. Even the Amish have their problems.”
    She spun her monitor around to face me. “Look for yourself.”
    I scanned the Chamber of Commerce web page she had pulled up. I skimmed the history of maple sugar and its importance in breaking down the nation’s reliance on the West Indian slave trade and scrolled past postcard-perfect photos of a tiny Vermont town nestled in the Green Mountains. Skiing. Shopping. Picturesque views. A four-star restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Great-looking people straight out of central casting. Sugar Maple pretty much had it all.
    Except crime.
    “They probably cheat on their taxes,” I said, spinning the monitor back into position. “Where’s this going, Franny?”
    “Sieverts’s people are leaning on Montpelier to tie up all the loose ends about your friend’s death before it has a chance to hit the media, and Montpelier’s red-faced about letting a town slip between their sticky bureaucratic fingers.” Both sides needed someone on the ground in Sugar Maple to put an official stamp on things. Go in, snoop around, make sure there was no foul play, no nasty surprises to come back later and bite Sieverts on the ass. Once things were wrapped up to everyone’s satisfaction, the boys in Montpelier would install one of their own and I’d be out.
    “It’s not permanent,” Fran said, watching me. “I want to make sure you know that. You’ll be cutting ties with us for something that isn’t going to last.”
    “Nothing lasts forever, Franny.”
    I said yes.

4

    CHLOE
SUGAR MAPLE, VERMONT
     
    As it turned out, we didn’t have to go looking for trouble. Two days later it found us and the whole town seemed to go crazy at once.
    “It is what it is,” Joe Randazzo from the County Clerk’s Office said when he broke the news to me over the phone. “That pet shop next door to you is vacant. We’ll put him there.”
    “You can’t,” I said, trying not to let him know I was on the verge of a total meltdown. “I was thinking of expanding my business into that space.”
    I heard him take a long drag on a cigarette. “Like I said, Ms. Hobbs, it is what—hold on.”
    I said something entirely inappropriate.
    Janice, who had stuck with me through my morning of ugly phone calls, looked up from the Baby Surprise Jacket she was knitting, “What’s going on? You’ve been talking to him forever.”
    “You’re the one with the powers,” I said, a tad snappishly. “You tell me.”
    Janice shot me a look over her bamboo needles. “I’m a witch, not a fortune-teller.”
    Which made me laugh, something I didn’t think I would be doing again for a very long time. Janice was descended from a long line of women who revered Mother Earth and understood her ways. She was also understandably proud of her lineage and ready to do battle with anyone who didn’t show it the proper respect.
    “Don’t blame me,” I said as Muzak’d Barry Manilow assaulted my eardrums. “I’m only human.”
    It was Janice’s turn to laugh. “That’s okay, honey. I like you anyway.”
    “They’re sending a cop to Sugar Maple.”
    “To ask questions? That makes sense. They have all those forms to fill out up there in Montpelier.” She paused for a second but started up again before I could jump in.