Putting the cats out of my head, three minutes later I walked into the Ship’s Anchor. Sure enough, Livin’ on a Prayer was blasting out of the speakers. I saw Jason already sitting in a corner booth, so I made my way over to him. The Ship’s Anchor was modeled after the kind of bar you’d expect to see in Pirates of the Caribbean, but without the dive-bar clientele. The provincial furniture, corner fireplace and dim lighting certainly gave a rustic impression, but the clientele was definitely not the type to toast each other at two in the morning. I walked past Betty having dinner with a friend, and Leanne Chu sitting at a corner table by herself with her laptop and a beer.
I slipped into the booth next to Jason and leaned my head on his shoulder.
“Hey,” he told me, kissing me on top of the head. I closed my eyes and enjoyed his closeness for a minute until the waitress came by with a menu. She was noticeably cool toward me, and incredibly warm toward Jason. I was used to that by now. I ordered a vodka and orange juice—I figured after the day I’d had I deserved a stiff drink—and began to speak.
“So,” I said, perusing the menu even though I already knew I was going to get the black bean quesadilla with tortilla chips on the side. It was my usual here. “I actually do have a reason for this last-minute dinner.”
“You mean you didn’t miss me so much that you couldn’t stand going another minute without having me in your presence?” Jason asked with a grin.
“Well, there is that,” I conceded. “But also, I have a huge scoop for you.”
“Ooooh, do tell!” Jason said, his eyes twinkling.
“Seriously, you’ve never had a scoop this big,” I told him.
“I’m not going to have it at all if you don’t tell me what it is.”
“Fine,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him. “Jeremy Wallace was one of five people involved in stealing the Helena diamond. He stole it from the rest of the thieves and hid it somewhere in Willow Bay before he was killed.”
I didn’t think I’d ever seen Jason actually look surprised before. He was the least flappable person I’d ever met; Willow Bay probably didn’t come close to what he’d seen in New York, even with all the crazy events of the last few months. But this time, his mouth dropped open and his eyes widened.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m one-hundred-percent serious.”
He let out a low whistle and closed his eyes. “You know, Willow Bay was advertised to me as a small, seaside resort where nothing interesting ever happens. And now you’re telling me on top of four, probably five murders since I’ve arrived here, a band of criminals are searching for one of the most famous diamonds in the world that’s hidden here somewhere?”
“Technically Caroline Gibson was murdered in Wawnee, and Jessica Oliver’s body was just dumped here,” I replied with a shrug. “But yeah. If it helps, apart from the group of thieves, I’m pretty sure the four of us are the only people who know about this.”
“So you think one of the four thieves killed Jeremy Wallace?”
“Yup.”
“How did you find this out, anyway?”
I lowered my voice to barely more than a whisper; Jason had to lean in to hear me.
“Sophie and I broke into Jeremy Wallace’s hotel room; we found a hidden burner phone and then two of the other thieves broke in as well.”
“And they didn’t see you?”
“We hid in the bathroom,” I replied, inwardly cursing myself for forgetting about the magic part. At least it wasn’t a total lie.
“That’s crazy,” Jason told me. “You two realize you could have been seriously hurt, or killed, if they’d found you? One of them could be the murderer.”
“I know, but we couldn’t know that two of the other thieves were going to break in at the exact same time we did,” I argued, although secretly it warmed my heart that Jason cared so much about my safety.
Jason shook his head. “I’m glad you’re safe. And I’m glad you found that information. Can I have a look at the phone?”
I nodded and pulled it out of my purse, handing it over to Jason. Suddenly, I had an idea.
“You could actually solve one of our problems!” I exclaimed.
“Oh?”
“We want to get the phone to Chief Gary. After all, we want him to know that Jeremy Wallace was one of the diamond thieves, and that there are people out there with reason to kill him. But we didn’t know how to do it without admitting that Sophie and I broke into his hotel room where there was a police seal.”
A small smile crept up Jason’s face. “And here when I first met you I thought you were a goody two shoes. So you want me to take the phone and tell Chief Gary a source gave it to me?”
“Exactly!” I replied.
“I can do that,” Jason said. “He’ll probably know where it came from though. There aren’t a lot of people around who have been digging into Jeremy Wallace’s life. Everyone seems to have accepted that he was killed by a bear. By the way, I’ve been reading the letters to the editor. At least four of them have called for a bear cull. I recommend that you write one for the bears; I’ll make sure it gets top billing.”
“Thanks,” I replied with a sigh. People were just so scared of bears. I mentally added writing a letter to the editor to my to-do list for the next day. “I’ll email it over to you in the next day or so.”
“Sounds good,” Jason said. “I’ll copy the messages on the phone and send them to you before giving this to Chief Gary.”
“Thanks,” I replied with a smile. This was good. This way Chief Gary would have to admit there were people out there willing to kill Jeremy Wallace, and he might give the case another look.
“I’m impressed that you found this out,” Jason told me after the waitress came by to take our orders then left. “Seriously. If you ever decide that veterinary medicine isn’t for you, please take up investigative journalism.”
“Thanks,” I told Jason, shooting him a smile.
“And if you’re going to be committing any crimes with Sophie in the future, please remember that I make a pretty good bodyguard.”
“I figured that you aren’t really supposed to commit crimes to get a story.”
“It only counts as a crime if you get caught,” he replied with a wink, and I laughed.
“So how are you going to figure out which of the four people killed Jeremy Wallace?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” I replied. “We only found out about it a couple of hours ago. Luckily, Sophie and I now know what two of them look like. We snuck a look at them while we were hiding.” I winced inwardly at the lie. What did the Witches’ Council know, anyway? Who were they to decide who was allowed to know about magic and who wasn’t?
“So you could draw a picture of them?”
“Well, Sophie and I both have the artistry skills of an uncoordinated elephant, so that’s probably not the best idea. If Chief Gary wants to match us up with a sketch artist—if he even has access to a sketch artist—we can probably do a pretty good mock-up. I know I’d recognize them if I saw them again, though.”
“So now you have to figure out who the other two—Keith and Claire—are.”
“Yeah, find the two people who don’t belong in a town full of tourists. Piece of cake.”
“Look on the bright side, a week ago there were about a hundred times the number of tourists than are here now.”
“That’s true,” I conceded. “Well, I look forward to looking at everyone who’s not from Willow Bay as being suspicious from now on.”
“You’ve never sounded more like a small-town person,” Jason joked, and I punched him lightly in the arm.
“Not everyone from a small town is suspicious of outsiders,” I replied.
“Yesterday Elise Grobin spent fifteen minutes asking me about every member of my extended family, and wrote down all their names so she could look them up on Facebook.”