Free Charms and Chocolate Chips: A Magical Bakery Mystery by Bailey Cates Page A

in danger!” She turned to me. “And you have to help her. You simply have to, Katie. If you won’t do it because you know it’s the right thing and because you know you
can
, then do it for me. As a personal favor to me. Will you do that? I’m sure the other members of the spellbook club will help out here at the bakery if you need to leave during the day.”
    All eyes lasered to me. Lucy’s gaze was particularly sympathetic but still unyielding.
    “Of course we will,” Jaida said. “Cookie, too, I’m sure.”
    I licked my lips. Mimsey was the senior witch in the spellbook club. If we had been the sort of group to have a high priestess, then she would have been ours. But, more important, she was
Mimsey
.
    Stifling a groan, I said, “Okay. I can’t make any promises; you know that. But I’ll see what I can find out.”
    She beamed. “Excellent! Now, how shall we start?”
    I sighed. Sometimes destiny sucked, but if I was going do this, I would try to do it right.

Chapter 7
    We needed to know more about the maroon bats and the golf course land deal. My knowledge of both was pretty much limited to what Wren had told Detective Quinn and the unhelpful information I’d gleaned from my Internet search the night before. Unfortunately, Wren could talk about habitat and mating rituals and birth rates and food supplies, but she didn’t seem to know any more than I did about Autumn’s legal machinations.
    Now that I was actually asking these questions, though, I was seized with a kind of anxious urgency. “What about the maroon bats, Wren? You said there was an actual sighting that you and Autumn had been basing all of your work in Fagen Swamp on, right? Was it one of the usual suspects?” Many reports of endangered species came from bird-watching clubs, especially the Savannah Avian Society.
    “Not this time,” Wren said. “The sighting—actually two of them—came from a man who lives right there in the swamp. His name is Evanston Rickers.”
    “He lives there? How can you be sure he’s not just some kook who wants to keep living in the swamp?”
    She looked offended. “I went to see him, and he showed me where he’d seen the bats. He’s a zoologist with a focus on herpetology—snakes—and he contacted us out of genuine concern about the bats. He gave me pictures. Unfortunately, they weren’t definitive enough. Since then I’ve gone out several times to follow up.”
    “But you didn’t find anything?” I asked. Pictures could be faked—but what would be the point?
    Her reluctance was evident in the shake of her head. “It doesn’t mean they aren’t there. I’ve only had a couple of months to try to find them, and while maroon bats don’t migrate, they do hibernate in the winter. They’re also solitary creatures—not like gray bats that thrive in large colonies. Often you’ll only find one, or a mother and her pup. I expected to be able to locate them when it warms up.”
    I wondered whether she’d added that wish to the ones we’d burnt in the Imbolc fire.
    She licked her lips, looked around at everyone, and ducked her head. “Autumn said we couldn’t wait until spring, though. She said if we couldn’t find something to give to the EPA in the next month or so, she wanted to devote our time to the flatwoods salamander project.”
    Wren had mentioned that to Detective Quinn. If Georgia Wild was going to give up on the maroon bats—and from the work I’d been doing with them, I’d assumed the project had been a rather minor one to start with—then the sale of the swampland would likely go through. In that case, why kill Autumn over it? Could she have discovered some new information that supported the existence of the bats?
    After all, if the murderer hadn’t killed Autumn because of the maroon bats, then why had Autumn been clutching the origami version of one with that curious and distasteful signature? And why on earth would someone slip one under Wren’s door?
    “Okay, here’s