Bewitched (Betwixt & Between #2) - Darynda Jones Page 0,72

call if—” My phone dinged before I could finish the thought. Relief flooded every bone in my body. “It’s Annette.”

Roane leaned close to read over my shoulder. He smelled like soap and morning mist. I wanted to turn into him and breathe deeply but figured that would be awkward.

“Um, so something happened,” Annette texted.

“What?” I texted back, my pulse picking up speed.

“I had a minor fender bender, but I’m okay.”

“Oh, thank the Gods,” I said aloud, wondering when her texts had grown from teen hearts and emoji’s to middle-aged sentences, complete with punctuation. “Where are you?”

“I had to get all of that taken care of, but I kind of did something else.”

I stilled for a moment as my mind raced. I texted back, “Call me.”

“That’s the thing,” she texted. “I can’t make any calls. I broke my phone. Screen is shattered. I’m barely able to text, but for some reason, it won’t let me call.”

Then why was she texting so much. A simple 9-1-1 would’ve done. “Is that the something else?”

“Yes and no. I’m at Gulu-Gulu now. Come meet me for breakfast, and I’ll explain. Alone. I’ll die if anyone finds out.”

What in the world could she have done? Then it hit me. “Oh, my God,” I said to Roane. “She really did go back into The Witchery. I have to go.”

I made a U-turn to the front door.

Someone else was already there knocking.

Roane grinned. “Want me to drive you?”

Now that we knew what happened, kind of, there was no need. “It’s okay. I’ll sneak around the house and hop into the bug before anyone sees me.”

I passed Dad and Papi in the kitchen searching through the drawers.

“What are you looking for?”

“Paper,” Dad said. “You do not need people knocking on your door at all hours. You need official office hours. This is ridiculous. I’m making a sign.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, leaning in to kiss both of them.

When I turned to Roane, he stood there expectant, a challenge beckoning between his lashes. Since I was on a roll, I leaned in, albeit a bit hesitantly, and kissed his scruffy cheek as well.

He slid a hand to the small of my back and pulled me close, then let go and gazed down at me.

“I’ll be back in a few.”

After a quick nod, he went to find paper for my dad just as the knocking started anew.

Fourteen

I’m not saying I drink too much coffee,

but I do believe my body will keep moving

48 hours after my death.

-Meme

When I got to the café, the tourist crush had already begun, and it was barely nine a.m.

I couldn’t imagine what Annette had done to Love that would warrant such secrecy, but any excuse to eat at Gulu-Gulu, a local fave I’d been dying to try, was a good one in my book. I looked around at the people in the room. Curiously, she wasn’t here, so I got us a table and sat stewing in yet another conundrum.

Everyone who’d come to my door today had needed something. A question answered, a problem solved, an object found. And I’d known exactly what their need was before they’d even knocked. How? Was that part of my calling? Was that what a charmling did? Help people? Like a magical PI?

Maybe I was more like Ruthie than I thought. A finder of lost things. Perhaps, because that was my ultimate purpose, I could read people and know instinctively what they needed most at any given time. Or perhaps I was simply losing what was left of my mind. It could go either way, because I couldn’t read a single person sitting around me. How was that even possible?

The waiter came by.

I ordered hot chocolate and asked for more time since Nette had yet to arrive. He sat it down a few minutes later, but before I could drink it, a woman approached the table.

Confident. Austere. Slender with long auburn hair, she had sparkly eyes like Roane’s, only I couldn’t tell what color they were. She wore jeans and a loose black sweater. “Are you Defiance Dayne?”

Seriously, Annette must’ve handed out flyers on the street corner with my picture one them. Or taken out one of the moving ads in The Daily Prophet’s wizarding news. Or filmed an infomercial.

“I am,” I said.

“Oh, good.” The woman sat down even though she hadn’t been invited.

After the onslaught at the house, I wasn’t feeling very invite-y. And when Annette finally got here, she’d tear this woman right out of that chair if she had