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

the deal,” I said to the ladies. “We need to tell Detective Quinn about this second origami bat. Maybe the lab can find fingerprints or figure out if the paper is the same as the other bat. I don’t know. It really would have been better to have the police come to Wren’s apartment when you discovered it.”
    Mimsey looked chastened.
    “Don’t worry. He’ll be happy to get it now,” I said, hurrying to assure her. “Wren, I know you and Autumn were close. Can you tell me a bit more about that boyfriend I may or may not have seen on the street outside Georgia Wild last night?”
    Jaida raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really. You didn’t mention that.”
    “I told Detective Quinn,” I said. “Wren?”
    “Well, his name is Hunter Normandy.”
    Bianca snorted, though she managed to make it sound delicate and feminine.
    “Yeah, yeah. He has a fancy name,” I said. So did she, for that matter. “Sounds like a trust-fund baby. Ivy League or something. Though the two times I met him he was dressed in funky vintage stuff—mismatched plaids, Panama hat, stuff like that.”
    Wren shook her head. “I don’t think he comes from money. He’s a nice enough guy, though I haven’t spent any real time around him. He works at a mortuary.”
    “Doing what?” For all I knew, he could be their bookkeeper.
    “I have no idea.”
    “What else?” I prompted.
    She shrugged. “Autumn didn’t talk about him that much. She seemed happy enough, and I know she liked spending time with him. Sometimes she’d compare him to her ex-husband, and Hunter always came out on top.”
    “Nothing else?” Meaning:
No juicy secrets?
“After all, he was her boyfriend. And you guys spent a lot of time together.”
    “Autumn didn’t talk about her personal life much. I mean, you have a boyfriend and I don’t know very much about him, either.”
    Lucy directed a wry look my way.
    “Okay. I get it,” I said. “She didn’t blather on about herself.” Hard to argue with that.
    “At Georgia Wild she was all about the business of the nonprofit, and while we were really close at work, we didn’t socialize much outside of G.W.,” Wren said. “Frankly, we were so busy, we didn’t have much time to socialize at all.”
    “What about her ex?”
    Again with the shrug. “The divorce was final about five months ago, but he kept calling. She ended up blocking him from her phone.”
    My ears perked up at that. Were we dealing with a possible stalker? “Was he threatening? Violent?”
    “She didn’t say that, only that he wouldn’t leave her alone.” Wren looked frustrated.
    I tried not to sigh. “Okay. So I’ll call Peter Quinn and tell him about the bat and see what’s going on. For all we know, they have a suspect in custody.”
    Hey, a girl could hope, right?
    The others looked about as convinced as I felt.
    “In the meantime, Jaida and Bianca, would you two mind going with Mimsey and Wren to her apartment? Take juniper berries and basil and sage and anything else that will help with both a personal-protection spell and a home-protection spell.”
    The four women rose as one. Jaida said, “I’ll stop by my house on the way and pick up a fresh Rider-Waite deck. The Hierophant card will add power to a protection spell.”
    “Well, you’re the expert,” I said. “Lucy, are you okay taking care of things here? It’s slow enough that it shouldn’t be a problem.”
    “Of course,” my aunt said. “What are you going to do?”
    “Well, first I’ll call Quinn. Then it seems I need to go see a man about a golf course.”
    •   •   •
    In the Honeybee office I grabbed my cell phone and sank into the desk chair. Mungo stood up on his hind legs on the floor next to me until I picked him up and put him on my lap. He nudged my free hand with his wet nose until I scratched him behind the ear.
    Detective Quinn answered on the first ring, skipping the niceties. “Why am I not surprised to see your name come up on my phone the day