Bewitched (Betwixt & Between #2) - Darynda Jones Page 0,84
you. You were gone from my life, and I didn’t know if I could live after that. I didn’t know if I wanted to.”
I stood and walked to the sink to look out into the backyard, and she followed me. “Gigi, why didn’t . . .” My voice cracked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to have to live with that, sweetheart. What would that have done to you growing up? What good could’ve come of my telling you now? I just thought . . . I wanted to keep the memory you had of your mother safe. But Houston is right.”
“I usually am,” he said.
We laughed softly.
Roane was at my other side. Not crowding. Just there.
I took his hand. I would deal with the emotional turmoil of Ruthie’s bombshell later. I pretended to shake it off. “You had a question too?” I asked her.
“It can wait.”
“No.” I straightened my shoulders. “I’m okay.”
She played with the sleeve of her dress. “I was wondering when you and Annette are going to get this business going.”
I looked at Annette. “Are you ready?”
“I was born ready.” She fluffed her feathers.
Ruthie nodded. “Then I would like to be your first paying customer, if you’ll have me.”
“You had me at paying,” Annette said.
“I didn’t want to tell you this too soon, but I think it’s time.” She glanced at the chief, seeming nervous all of a sudden. “And I didn’t know how to tell you either, Houston.”
He stood and walked over to her. “Tell me what, love?”
“I didn’t die of natural causes. Someone killed me.”
The chief and I exchanged glances.
Ruthie lifted her chin. “I want you to find out who.”
“Ruthie,” I said, the room closing in on me, “are you saying someone murdered you?”
She nodded. “If I had to guess, I’d say it was a combination of belladonna and a deadly mushroom called death cap.”
That was specific. “How . . .” I swallowed, trying to keep my act together. “How did you figure that out?”
“The taste.” When I shook my head in question, she explained. “Let’s just say my lunch ended up in the toilet. I didn’t realize it was anything more than just an upset stomach until I got to the pantry. The world started spinning, and I had severe abdominal cramping. That’s when I recognized the taste.” She thought back. “Definitely belladonna, but there was something more. Something to give it an extra kick.” A soft shiver ran through her fragile body. “All I know is someone wanted me dead.”
“I’m sorry, Ruthie,” Annette said from her perch.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” She glanced at me. “It brought you two into my life.”
“Ruthie,” the chief said, “why didn’t you tell me this before? We would have performed an autopsy.”
“We thought it was natural causes. There was no evidence of foul play. Otherwise, we would’ve requested an autopsy.”
“Which is why I didn’t tell you,” Ruthie said to him.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
She brushed an invisible piece of lint off a sleeve. “Lying naked on a slab while someone cuts out my brain does not appeal to me in the least.”
“Ruthie Ambrosia Goode,” he said, both frustrated and hopelessly stricken with love.
Part of me wanted to remind her that she wouldn’t have felt a thing, but I did understand. I wasn’t sure the chief did, but we women seemed to take a different view of these things.
By the time we finished our conversation, I knew three things about Ruthie’s death. She was poisoned. She had not left the house in a few days, so whoever did it had to have gotten inside. And whoever poisoned her knew more than a modicum of witchcraft, because no one could’ve gotten past Percy without using some kind of concealment spell.
Of course, they also had to get past Roane. He stood completely quiet, as usual, but I could sense the anger and tension coming off him in waves.
“We’ll look into it,” I said, glancing at Annette.
She nodded in agreement.
“As will I,” the chief said, his expression grim.
“Can we circle back to me, now?” Annette pecked at Papi’s hand when he tried to pet her, and I was right there with him. “I think I’m getting lice.”
He jerked back his hand.
“You know,” I said, taking the opportunity to tease her. “Roane figured all of this out on his own. How to change back to a wolf. Maybe you need to put some thought into it. Pull up your bootstraps and, I don’t know, put