Witchy Business Mysteries

Most days, I could tell what was wrong with a car based on the sound it made as it rolled to a stop in front of Sunray’s Auto Shop. Judging from the wheezing, groaning squawk currently outside, it was going to need an exorcism.

“Yikes,” I muttered to the oil reservoir cap I was unscrewing under the raised hood of a Mazda.

“Probably took it to Speedy Zone,” Boxy, my co-conspirator/co-manager, called from…somewhere. Even with his cane, he moved stealthily, like a sixty-something-year-old ninja wearing overalls. He’d been working on the Chevrolet next to me not two seconds ago.

“Boxy?” I asked, glancing around. “You here, or did I dream you up?”

He reappeared from behind the Chevrolet and winked with the only eye he could wink with. The other was made of glass. He liked to take it out sometimes to let my cat familiar, Professor Studmuffin Salvitore III, play with it, which…sure. Why not?

“Better take a picture to prove that dreams really do come true,” Boxy said.

“I’ll get right on that.” I grinned and pointed to a red-striped quart of oil on the shelf next to his head. “Hand me the high-mileage oil?” I turned back to the Mazda, and when my favorite ninja didn’t deliver, I glanced over and did a double-take at the velocity of Boxy’s jaw dropping to his knees.

“Vic,” Boxy whispered to me, “it’s him.”

“Him who?”

“He Who Only Comes Out at Night,” Boxy hissed, his gaze pinned to the windows of the garage.

He Who Only Comes Out At Night was Boxy’s nickname for the new owner/manager of Speedy Zone across town, Travis Black. I knew him when we were little. I also knew his dad, and that was bad enough. Speedy Zone had re-opened about two months ago, complete with bikini-clad women washing cars and coupon booklets to help draw customers. I knew all of this because those same customers came to Sunray’s Auto Shop shortly after. The hocus-pocus they’d gotten at Speedy Zone hadn’t fixed their cars. That was some stellar managing, especially since no one ever saw Travis except at night. So, had he invested in some SPF 10,000 to grace us with his presence before the sun went down?

“Checking out his competition, probably,” I muttered.

Professor Studmuffin Salvitore III slipped into the garage part of the shop from the waiting room door, the smell of his three-layer chocolate buttercream cake drifting in after him. My stomach grumbled. That would be dinner later. Maybe even dessert. Part familiar, part baker, all cattitude, the handsome tom strolled across the cement floor to investigate.

“Not too close, Studmuffin,” Boxy warned.

The cat turned and gave him serious stink-eye for questioning his judgment.

I snorted a laugh.

The demon-possessed car outside cut its engine. A long shadow slanted across the sidewalk outside.

“Quick.” Boxy pulled his large blue-and-white striped railroad cap low over his face as if hoping it would swallow him. “He’s coming. What do we do?”

“Uh, hand me the quart of high-mileage oil?”

He pointed at me with his cane. “Yes. Act natural. Where is it again?”

Footsteps approached outside.

“Behind you on the shelf to your…left.”

He shuffled right, the fingers not on his cane waving into jazzy grabby hands.

I pressed my hand to my thigh to make the letter L to be sure I was correct. I often confused left and right because of my dyslexia. “Other left.”

“Bah!” He stabbed his cane into the ground to jazz his way in the other direction.

I hid my grin behind my shirt collar. It was ninja crazy town in the shop, our normal, and I loved every second of it.

He handed me the quart just as the door to the shop opened and dinged the overhead bell.

I turned and looked, my curiosity about why Travis was here getting the better of me. My gaze stuck briefly to his broad chest. He was tall with short sandy-blond hair, late thirties, and two spurs and a hat away from full-on cowboy if his boots were any indication. Worn jeans and a red flannel completed his ensemble. He also wore a big blue ring on his index finger that appeared to glow slightly. Maybe it was just the sunset streaming through the windows playing tricks with my eyes though.

I allowed myself a second to drink him in for a beat while the urge to tell him to get lost tipped my tongue. If he’d grown up to be anything like his dad, I already didn’t like him.

“So…” Without glancing at either Studmuffin right at his feet, Boxy, or me, he threw an utter look of disdain around the shop. “This is Sunray’s.”

A simmer started low in my gut from that look alone, so I dismissed his existence by leaning over the oil reservoir with the quart and my tongue firmly planted between my teeth.

“Hey there. Boxy here.” Boxy limped past me, wiping his free hand down the front of his overalls, and then thrust it toward Travis.

“I don’t know what that is,” he said, his voice gravelly as if roughened by sleep.

“It’s a hand. You shake it,” Boxy said, his sarcasm on full drip.

“I mean Boxy.”

“Oh, that’s my name. Or that’s what my friends call me.”

I could hear Boxy’s mind working to determine whether to give his real name or not, something he usually reserved for lawyers or politicians.

“Do you always keep it so messy in here?” Travis asked.

A low hiss seeped through my clenched teeth over the glug-glug of oil. This shop charged my blood, was my home. Hearing someone like him, some random who didn’t know anything about cars come in and ridicule it, made me want to high-five his face with a metal chair. I straightened, turned, and sliced him with the sharpest glare I could muster.

He met my fury with wide, hazel eyes, side-lit from the sun to a mossy green color. They tracked over my turquoise ponytail, my black tank top underneath my open work shirt, my plaid shorts, and down to my steel-toed work boots.

“If you’re here to get your car fixed, we can do it,” I said, snapping his gaze back to mine instead of vacationing over the rest of me with the tone of my voice. “Otherwise, you can go now.”

He pointed at me but turned to Boxy. “You let customers in here work on their own cars?”

Just like the hundreds of times before I’d heard a comment like that, I gathered it up between my knuckles and crushed it. My boiling simmer cranked high and fizzed underneath my skin, growing especially hot under the collar of my work shirt that clearly read sunray’s Auto Shop. Only not so clearly when I glanced down. More like su Ay to p with all the oil stains.

Boxy slapped his hand to his forehead and dragged it down his whiskered chin. “Oh, you’ve done it now, boy-o.”

“Meow,” Studmuffin agreed and licked one of his white murder mittens.

I stepped closer to Mr. Speedy Zone, close enough to see the golden spokes flecking his green eyes and the dark shadows underneath. “There are two car shops in town,” I started, my voice measured but with just enough bite to drive my point home right between his blond eyebrows. “Yours and this one. And since you’ve opened yours, we’ve never been busier. People come here when they actually want to get their cars fixed.”

“Amen,” Boxy muttered and gave the sign of the cross to the holy car gods.

“Tell me, which shop do you take your car to?” I asked Travis.

His green eyes narrowed, then tracked down again to the shop’s smudged name stitched to my shirt. He held out his hand. “I’m Travis.”

Since he was introducing himself, he obviously didn’t remember me. I backed off and jazzed my hands Boxy-style so Travis would see that actually fixing cars made me not fit for touching. Ever. Especially by him. “My friends call me Vic. You can call me Victoria.”

“You’re Victoria?” He nodded as if something had just clicked into place. “That makes sense, but wow, you’ve changed. Are you always like this with everyone who walks in here?”

Boxy rocked back on his heels and muttered, “Yes.”

I shot him a mock hurt look. No way could I ever really get mad at Boxy. “Like what?”

“So…” Travis winced as if rattling around a whole toolbox of possibilities in that head of his, most of which I probably didn’t want to hear. “Spicy.”

I snorted. “Only toward rude people who come in here to cast judgment on this shop when they absolutely have no right to. Otherwise, I’m the least spicy person you’ll ever meet.”

He smiled and somehow made it look skeptical. “Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, then.” He bowed his head, his gaze never leaving mine. “I’m sorry I was rude.”

I shrugged. “Apology accepted if you get your car exorcised soon.”

“Exorcised?” He chuckled, a low, pleasant sound.

“She’s a tad obsessed with ghosts and spooky things,” Boxy said, hiking his thumb toward me. “Too much TV, this one.”

I snorted at the King of Horror Movies, who fed my addiction with his impressive stash of old DVDs. The witchy ones were my favorites.

Studmuffin blinked sleepily up at Travis. Poor thing must’ve needed a nap after his long day of naps.

“So. The reason I’m here...” Travis fished some folded-up papers out of his back pocket. “You two have probably heard about the mini-mall that’s coming to town?”

Oh yes. The mini-mall. It was a rumor that had bred conspiracy theories about Belle’s Cove, our small coastal town in Georgia, becoming more like a city. The worry was that if Belle’s Cove grew larger, it would have all the same problems of cities like crime and road rage due to increased traffic. The exact same concerns had cropped up when Safe-Mart had been built about twenty years ago, so I’d heard. As far as I knew, the only thing that made people criminals or rage was the one open check-out lane among a seemingly endless row of closed check-out lanes.

“Yeah,” I said, posting my hands on my hips. “My microwave may have mentioned a mini-mall to me.”

Boxy shot me a grin. “Was that before or after the weekly world alien-sighting report at eleven?”

“Before,” I joked. “Keep up.”

Boxy chuckled and shook his head. “Been hearing about that mini-mall for years. Nothing’s ever come out of it.”

“Until now.” Travis ticked his gaze between us, a frown creasing his forehead. “Despite what your microwave may have told you… Whatever that means. It just so happens that construction starts in a couple months on the empty lot next to Speedy Zone.”

“Right next door?” I quirked an eyebrow. “Well, congratulations. You’ll be a lot busier.”

“The shop could become a lot busier a lot sooner with the right person calling the shots.” Travis handed me the papers.

I took them, trying to read his blank expression and decipher the words he’d just said. A sudden tremor started in my hands, and a sour taste slid to the back of my tongue. Whatever these papers said, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like it. I glanced down, and the words swam over the page, the letters rearranging themselves into nonsense. If I concentrated, I could read them, but not right then, not in front of him where he could watch me closely.

“Give me the condensed version,” I said, gazing up at him again.

“It’s my offer to you. A generous deal for you to buy Speedy Zone from me. I’ll make sure you have everything you need to meet the growing demand from the mini-mall.”

Boxy growled. Studmuffin snored. Travis didn’t seem to notice the ball of fur that had fallen asleep on his left boot.

“What?” I demanded. “You want me to buy your shop? From you?”

“Well…” Travis glanced at Boxy, who gave him no love in return. “Yeah. Look, I know what my dad did—” He broke off, likely at the projection of rage, much stronger than that for one open check-out lane, written all over my face.

He didn’t know anything about anything. My dad had started Speedy Zone with Marcus Black, Travis’s dad. Marcus liked to do business as shady as possible and pulled the financial rug out from under my dad by stealing from the company. With most of his money now gone and with a young daughter to raise, my dad started again from scratch with this shop, Sunray’s. Growing up, I was the one who had attached myself to his hip since I could walk and had learned everything there was to know about cars. Now, I managed Sunray’s the best I could with Boxy’s help. My dad had handed the shop over to me shortly after he’d met and married a sugar momma and was now honeymooning the world with her. Which, good for him. He deserved all of his happiness. I told him so as often as I could.

But hearing Travis’s offer to buy back the company that should’ve belonged to Dad anyway felt like a slap to the face.

“…and you can stick it where the sun don’t shine, you filthy bloodsucker,” Boxy was saying, his voice snapping sharp like a rubber band.

Travis raised his hands to ward off Boxy’s wrath. “I’ll leave the paperwork here. How about you two think on it.”

Boxy pointed to the door with his cane. “How about you see yourself out.”

Nodding, Travis settled his green gaze on me once again. “Just…think about it.”

I looked away, shaking my head. Buying another business? I might as well have been chasing Boxy’s glass eyeball into uncharted territory. I had no idea if that was, or would ever be, a good business decision.

My mind flashed the college application lying next to my unopened grimoire on my kitchen table. Those things had been waiting for close to twenty years. The whole table had become The Place To Put Things I Don’t Want To Think About Today. Maybe business school would help me make these types of decisions, though. Maybe it wouldn’t, but I would offer up a kidney to have the savvy to keep this place around for the next forty-plus years. But two shops? Maybe more eventually?

The ambition and the car know-how had never been what held me back. It was my dyslexia and my failed witch status. All of my doubts centered around those things. Always had.

“We can’t be persuaded so easily,” Boxy snapped. “I know, the nerve of us. How dare you try to sell something to us that Vic’s dad bled his whole life into.”

To his credit, Travis gently removed himself from underneath my sleeping familiar. Then he turned and sighed, placing the papers on top of the empty oil quarts and other trash. Fitting spot. His shoulders filled the doorframe as he left. Seconds later, his car screamed to life. I could almost hear the pea soup gurgling under the hood in preparation for a purge, hopefully right into Travis’s face.

“Vic?” Boxy asked. “What’s going on in that head?”

I shook it, trying to rattle out a coherent thought. “I think He Who Only Comes Out At Night should only come out at night.”

Studmuffin adopted me about five months ago when he appeared inside Sunray’s, strode through the shop like he owned the place, and then immediately started baking for my customers. As cats sometimes do.

Like I did with all animals, I’d melted into a puddle, completely smitten. He had stunning yellow-green eyes, a white chest and white murder mittens, and sleek black and white fur. Total studmuffin. He had resting you-obviously-didn’t-study face, which was why I called him Professor. The Studmuffin part was obvious, and I’d always liked the name Salvitore. He looked so regal and serious that I added the III at the end. His name fit him to a T.

He specialized in zero-calorie cakes that didn’t pack on the pounds but tasted like they should. He also brewed the perfect cup of coffee or tea. His other skills included finding the most uncomfortable places to nap and purring as loud as the cars I worked on. He had more magic in one little murder mitten than I ever would, but I loved him fiercely. Even failed witches needed familiars, I supposed, and he was all mine.

“Oh, you’re coming with me?” I scrunched my nose up at him as he trotted past toward my car.

It was after hours at Sunray’s. Boxy had already gone home to his secret ninja fortress I’d been to exactly zero times. Begrudgingly, I was headed to Speedy Zone with Travis’s contract so I could throw it in his face.

Studmuffin pawed at my car door and blinked expectantly at me over his shoulder.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I muttered.

It made me nervous to drive with him since he insisted on sitting in my lap, paws at ten and two on the steering wheel. I’d once tried to wrestle him into a cat carrier for safety’s sake before hitting the road, but it hadn’t gone well. We’d stayed home instead, me nursing my wounds and Studmuffin nursing his pride. That was obviously the last time that would ever happen.

I opened the door of my muscle car for him, a purple Pontiac Firebird I named Bernadette. The feminine version of a Studmuffin. It ran like a dream because of course it did. My familiar hopped in, and soon we were cruising through the quaint, bustling streets of downtown Belle’s Cove.

It was an early Friday evening in June, too hot to crack the windows and let the Georgia peach-scented air breeze through our hair. I did anyway though. People strolled down the sidewalks in front of cozy shop windows, smiling, laughing, and sometimes stopping to peer inside the shops. Others sat on benches beneath the twinkling lights stringing from one tree to the next. Belle’s Cove had a magical feel about it, a unique energy unlike any place I had ever visited. I couldn’t imagine living anyplace else.

Speedy Zone was still open when we arrived, its neon lights blazing and cars parked haphazardly in the large parking lot.

“No falling asleep on his boot this time, all right?” I said into the top of Studmuffin’s furry head.

He pressed back into my kiss like he always did.

“Okay, but that wasn’t an agreement that you won’t fall asleep on his boot.”

He yawned and waited for me to open the door for him. Witch, servant. Was there really a difference to him?

“Welcome, welcome!” a cheery voice said as soon as we walked in the front door.

It didn’t come from the woman sitting behind the counter. She looked half crazed as if she’d heard the automatic door greeting one too many times. She looked in her early twenties, and her expertly winged eyeliner made her resemble a cat. Just…how? How do women do that so well with their makeup? Whenever I tried, I looked like a panda bear.

“We close in thirty minutes,” she barked.

Ah, good old Southern hospitality. Like the woman’s tone, Speedy Zone was the opposite of warm and inviting. The lights were too bright, the tile floors too polished, and there was a distinct lack of cake, coffee, and tea scents. The place stank of oil and exhaust. Not good at all.

“I’ll be out in one,” I told the woman. “Is Travis Black here?”

She jerked her head toward a side hallway and then peered over the counter at Studmuffin.“I don’t think you can have cats in here.”

“Oh, he’s not a cat. He’s a familiar studmuffin.”

Frowning, she tilted her head. “A what?”

My familiar and I grinned, and we sauntered down the hallway past a bathroom toward a small office. Precarious stacks of file folders and loose papers were piled everywhere, on the desk, on the floor, leaving hardly any room for Travis, let alone the two of us. Without knocking, we wedged ourselves in anyway.

“Hey,” I said, my voice crisp.

Behind us from the bathroom, running water and humming sounded.

“Hey. I thought I heard your spice coming.” Travis stood and weaved toward us. He looked bored and tired and not at all surprised to see me, which angered me even more.

“You heard…right.” Oh no. There went Studmuffin, straight to Travis’s left cowboy boot again, but a different pair from last night. These were a reddish color, the toes worn and faded.

Travis smiled. “I think your cat likes me.”

“He’s like this with everyone.” Except he wasn’t at all. He tolerated most people, but there was something about Travis’s boots that made him sleepy. Sleepier.

Studmuffin tapped the boot as if to test its softness and then rubbed his cheek all over it. Such a fluffer-stinker.

“Did you roll yourself in catnip or something?” I asked Travis.

“Well, obviously.” The green in his hazel eyes sparked with humor. “Is this visit work-related or did you just miss me?”

“Miss you?” I took a deep, steadying breath. This man was really something special if he actually thought I’d missed him. “Look, I hunted you down to let you know I’m not interested in buying Speedy Zone. Find another buyer. Or grow a pair of cement boots to sink you back to the pit you oozed from.”

He lifted his eyebrows and nodded, as if agreeing with me that that might be the best choice. “How does one grow cement boots? Are there special seeds for that or…?”

I shoved the folded-up contract at his chest, my fingertips meeting hard steel underneath his black T-shirt. “You’re going to drive me insane, aren’t you? Did you hear a word I said? I’m not interested.”

“Wait.” He wrapped his hand around my wrist as I started to leave, his index finger empty of his glowing blue ring. “What are you doing tomorrow at eight o’clock?”

The question pulled me up short. What did that have to do with not buying Speedy Zone? “Why?”

“Just…hear me out.” Something shifted behind his tired, shadowed eyes, as if he’d been struck by something he’d just read on my face.

“I don’t owe you anything.”

“No. You don’t. But I have a…” He chuckled. “Proposal.”

“Does it involve you disappearing from my life?”

He shrugged, his rough fingers still attached to my wrist. “It…could. Eventually. And I’ll even promise to figure out the whole cement shoes thing and keep you posted.”

I sank my eyes closed and sighed. “I’m listening.”

“Come to our farm at eight o’clock for cobbler with my grandmother and me.” He paused a beat, as if to gauge my reaction. “As my fiancée.”

I blinked hard at him until I feared I might pull an eye muscle. Had he really just asked me that? The nerve!

“Have a nice life.” I yanked my arm free and glanced down at my familiar to tell him we were leaving, but he was already sound asleep on Travis’s boot.

I smacked my forehead. “You shouldn’t fraternize with the enemy,” I told Studmuffin.

“Wait.” Travis laughed. “You won’t come even for peach cobbler?”

I groaned silently. He didn’t play fair. “Why could you possibly want me to pretend to be your fiancée? You didn’t even know who I was at Sunray’s.”

“I know. You’re right.” He shook his head, suddenly looking even more tired than he had seconds ago. “It’s been a hard year for Gran, and I said something stupid to cheer her up and…” He dragged a hand down his face as he turned back to me, and I caught a glimpse of sadness in his eyes. “Never mind. I’ll handle it.”

I sighed, feeling a little bit like a jerk. Just because his dad was awful didn’t mean he was awful too. “Why did your dad steal from my dad all those years ago?”

“I don’t know. I would ask him, but he’s dead.”

Oh. I hadn’t known. I started to say I was sorry, but stopped because I didn’t know that I was. It sounded terrible, but it was the truth. Dad and I had been almost homeless since most of Dad’s money had been tied up in the auto shop. Then, like it was carried away by a great wind, most of that money was gone.

“I’m not my dad, Victoria. I swear,” Travis said, searching my face as if for a sign I could ever believe him. “All I’m trying to do is make what he did right. That’s all.”

He sounded so genuine, but I wasn’t about to run into such a big business decision full-speed ahead. I needed to know for sure I could trust him. Even if I ever did trust him, his offer to buy Speedy Zone still felt like it scraped raw everything Dad had lost.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow at eight o’clock for cobbler?” he asked hopefully.

“Nope,” I said, popping the p sound, and turned to leave. “You won’t. Go find another fiancée. Studmuffin, we’re leaving.”

My familiar perked awake and followed, leaving Travis smirking after us with his contract in his hand.

“I have a feeling I’ll see you again, Victoria,” he said.

I huffed. “Sounds like a threat.” That man could very well be the death of me.

Back down the hallway, the sound of running water and someone humming came from a half-open door that was probably the bathroom. In the entryway, a large window behind the empty counter looked out into the garage part of the shop. Next to the window stood a closed door.

Just a peek was all I wanted. No harm done, right? A chance to study my competition up close and personal, though really it wasn’t much competition at all.

I started toward the window, but Studmuffin zipped in front of me so I almost tripped over him.

“I just want to look,” I whispered to him.

When I glanced down, I found him trying to turn himself into a porcupine. His fur had bristled, and his ears lay flat. He held perfectly still, his warm body pressed to my legs as if to keep me there.

“Studmuffin, can you move, please?”

Why was he freaking out? I flicked my gaze to the large garage window but didn’t see anything particularly out of the ordinary. Several lines of cars sat with their hoods open. Near the back of the garage was the hydraulic lift used for changing tires or working on the bottom of cars. The lifts were raised at uneven intervals, but there was no car held aloft by them. Odd, but not exactly the stuff nightmares or kitty warnings were made of.

Shaking my head, I leaped over my familiar and ran to the door that led to the garage before he could stop me. I opened it—and then stopped. From this angle, I could see through all the opened hoods to a truck below the raised, uneven hydraulic lifts. An unmoving pair of legs poked out from right underneath the truck’s tires.

I sucked in a shaky breath. The truck must’ve fallen from the lifts. Exactly the stuff nightmares were made of, because whoever those legs belonged to, their owner was surely dead.

Toward the back of the garage, a streak of yellow movement blurred. Someone wearing a yellow jacket darted out the back and slammed the door behind them. Why would someone be running away, not calling 911 or telling Travis, the manager, what happened?

I started to turn to do just that when my gaze landed on the steel beams that supported the hydraulic lifts. I knew this brand of lift, had considered buying one for Sunray’s, so I knew exactly where the relief valve should’ve been. Relief valves basically made the hydraulics work. Only there wasn’t a valve. Just an empty space where one used to be, and valves didn’t just fall off.

This poor person had been murdered.

I blinked down at my hand still on the doorknob, my fingerprints smudging the bronze finish. This could look really bad, me being here, what with the history between Speedy Zone and Sunray’s and all.

“Oh no, Studmuffin.” I gulped loudly. “Oh no.”