Bound: A Doyle Witch Cozy Mystery

Book 1: The Witches of Doyle

by Kirsten Weiss

Genres: Paranormal; Occult & Supernatural; Cozy Mystery; Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

Book 1 in the Trilogy!

Bound by magic, bound by love, bound by murder...

The Bonheim triplets live seemingly ordinary lives, hiding their magic from their neighbors in the small, mountain town of Doyle, California. But then a body is found in flighty, big sister Jayce's coffee shop. Confronted by a sheriff with a grudge, a sister in denial, and a sexy lawyer with an agenda of his own, no-nonsense Karin must prove her sister innocent.

But as Karin works to unravel the murder, the knottier the mystery of her small mountain town becomes. Why are hikers vanishing in the nearby woods? Why are some people cursed with bad luck and others with good? And what is Jayce's lawyer hiding?

With her sister's fate hanging by a thread, Karin struggles to untangle the truth, and death stalks ever closer...

Knot magic spells at the back of the book!

Follow the magic with the Doyle Witch trilogy, starting with book 1, Bound. Each book has its own complete mystery and romance told from a different sister's point of view, and Bound, Down and Ground can all be enjoyed independently, with a magical storyline weaving through the three books. Read Bound and escape into the enchanting world of Doyle today.

Over 150 5-star reviews!

Voted "Best Paranormal" for August 2019 by ManyBooks readers.

Release date: November 21, 2016

Publisher: misterio press

Print pages: 216

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

 

Once upon a time, in the foothills of granite mountains, when the sun hadn’t yet risen in the east, there were three sisters. And one, me, had been stuck at the hospital all night.

The shadow of our small town’s modern hospital loomed over the parking lot. Behind it swelled Sierra peaks, a jagged frame vanishing into dark clouds. The muggy air promised rain to come, but I shivered in my thin blouse and safari jacket.

Maybe if I hadn’t been so tired, I would have paid more attention to the images written in the clouds, to the words whispering in the sough of the wind, sluggishly shifting the redwood branches.

But I wasn’t looking for portents. I wanted relief. So I ignored the throb of wild expectation in the air that raised gooseflesh on my arms. I ignored the hooting of an owl after sunrise – a sure sign of death coming to the house. I ignored the coil of iridescent purple oil in a nearby puddle that shaped itself into a grinning skull.

I yawned and shuffled car keys between my fingers. Eyes hot with exhaustion, I leaned against my Ford Fusion, grimaced and pulled away. The car was covered in droplets of moisture. Now, so was I.

A crow flapped overhead and cawed. It settled on the branch of a redwood tree and regarded me with one beady black eye.

My keys slipped, jingling, to the damp pavement. I bent and dropped them again, a shriek of frustration welling inside me and escaping as a sleep-deprived laugh. So I was tired. Soon, my aunt and surrogate mother would be home in her favorite chair and deep in her history books. And if the humidity and mountains seemed oppressive today, that was a price I gladly paid to live in the fairytale Sierra foothills.

Unlocking my car, I tumbled inside and leaned my head against the rest. The dash clock read five o’clock. Fumbling, I jammed my keys into the ignition and turned them.

Nothing.

I turned the keys again.

Silence.

I banged my head on the steering wheel. If I believed in messages from the universe (and I did), the cosmos would be hinting I was in no condition to drive.

Something thunked and scrabbled on the hood of my car.

I jerked my head upward and was nose to beak with the crow, on the other side of the glass. It squawked, giving me a view of its dark throat, streaked with pink.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “I’ll call Jayce.”

I excavated my cell phone from my purse and called my sister. A coffee shop owner, she’d be awake, prepping for the morning crowd.

“Mmph. Karin?” Jayce’s voice was muzzy, no doubt a byproduct of staying out all night at the local bar.

I tamped down my rising irritation. It wasn’t Jayce’s fault my car wasn’t working, and I had no social life. “Yeah,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“Ugh. Hangover. Headache.” My sister groaned. “What’s wrong? Is Ellen all right?”

“We’re at the hospital. They’re keeping her for observation.”

“Again?” Jayce sighed. “What did they say? It’s not serious, is it?”

“Another infection, they think. Can you come get me? I didn’t get any sleep, and I don’t think I’m safe to drive. Plus, my battery’s dead.”

“Are you being literal or figurative?”

I yawned, jaw cracking, ears popping. “Both.”

“Aye, aye Captain. I’ll be there in twenty.”

I rolled my eyes. My sisters had called me “Captain” since we were six. By birth order, Jayce should have been the bossy, responsible sister. But she, Lenore and I were triplets, three Scorpios born exactly three minutes apart. Traditional birth-order traits did not apply.

Jayce, the oldest and the wild child, had never been able to resist a good sin. Lenore, the youngest, was a bookish introvert. I was the middle child, a worrier by age five who imagined disaster whenever Jayce played in the forest alone, who spent sleepless nights in fear of losing my aunt as we’d lost our parents. And so I’d ordered our childhood lives for stability, making sure homework was done, excursions were planned down to the minute, and clothing was laid out the night before.

The nickname had been the first seeds of my sisters’ rebellion, a full-fledged sibling revolution by the time we were ten. I couldn’t blame Lenore and Jayce. I’d been a tyrant, and tyrants must be overthrown. But our old patterns hadn’t completely died, and Jayce’s good-time girl persona just made me crankier.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m parked at the edge of the lot, on the west side. I’ll be napping in my car.”

She laughed. “Tight squeeze. Good luck with that.”

We hung up, and I locked myself in the car and closed my eyes, drifting.

Someone banged on the window.

I bolted upright, banged my knee on the wheel, and yelped in pain.

Jayce grinned through the glass, her long, brunette hair swinging past her shoulders. She wore a painted-on ruby-colored top and jeans. With eyes the color of spring ivy and a heart-shaped face, she looked completely unlike me and Lenore. But though our features varied, strangers who saw us together pegged us for triplets. Our mannerisms, I guess.

I didn’t want to guess what I looked like. But I suspected my night at the hospital had drained the color from my already pale skin, turned my long, auburn hair lank. It wasn’t fair. Jayce had been out all night having fun and was as fresh as if she’d come from a lazy Saturday sleep-in. It would piss me off if she wasn’t my sister.

Rubbing my knee, I checked the dash. The dashboard clock read five thirty. Jayce hadn’t wasted any time.

I dragged myself into my sister’s F-150. She started the truck, its engine a wolf-like growl, and we drove onto the mountain highway to Doyle.

The rain that had threatened broke loose. First a few fat drops splattering the windshield, then a torrent, washing the truck and the highway clean. The sky darkened, and she flipped on the headlights. We raced, too fast, down the winding road, the pickup’s tires screeching as we rounded a tight bend.

Pines big enough to wrap a pickup around flashed past, and I clenched the door handle. “I’m pretty sure the speed limit is thirty-five.”

“That’s a recommendation, not a rule.” Jayce tossed her hair. “I’m thinking of installing tablets in Ground — not at every table, just the high ones. What do you think?”

I double-checked my seat belt and yawned. “I think I’m so tired, my brain itches.”

“So, no to tableside tablets?”

The windshield wipers beat a hypnotic, squeak-thunk rhythm, and I fought to keep my eyes open. “Let me guess,” I said dryly. “You met an engineer in the bar last night?”

“Two venture capitalists from Silicon Valley. Ace and his friend Jack.”

“Were you drinking with a deck of cards?”

Her green eyes sparkled. “Only the jokers.”

“I take it it wasn’t love.”

“Not even lust. Well, maybe a little bit of lust. We might have made out.”

“We? You and both of them?”

Jayce angled her head, frowning. “Why are we all still single?”

“Seriously. Both?” I hadn’t been on a date since last year. Doyle was a small town, and options were limited. But that never stopped Jayce from having a good time. Sometimes too good a time.

“Seriously,” she said. “Why?”

“Because you want to date everyone, Lenore wants to date no one, and the man I want to date doesn’t exist.” Was it too much to ask for a take-charge, masculine sort of guy who wasn’t a jerk face? They had to exist somewhere.

“Your problem is you and Lenore spend too much time in your heads. And I don’t want to date everyone. I only want to sample before settling. Is that so wrong?”

“There’s a difference between sampling and an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

“Meow.”

I grinned. “Guilty. I am jealous.” My stomach rumbled. “And now I’m hungry.” Through half-lidded eyes, I watched the old-timey wood and brick buildings drift slowly past. Water cascaded down the passenger window, blurring the street. I imagined the paved road turning to dirt, the cars turned to carriages, gold miners driving mules down Main Street.

But it was never hard to step back in time in Doyle. The past was always present, and over the last century, the town council had made sure things stayed the same. Mostly. The town was Norman Rockwell meets wi-fi.

“I’m running late,” Jayce said. “Mind if I take you to my apartment? You can sleep in the spare room, and later, me or one of the staff can drive you to your car. And there’s food in the fridge.”

I yawned, my jaw cracking. “That would be great. Thanks. How can you be so awake after partying all night?”

“Beats me. I’ve got this weird, fizzing feeling. Like something’s about to happen.” My sister pulled into the alley behind Ground and parked. “And my feelings are never wrong.”

I followed her to the rear entrance. The wall’s vanilla-colored paint flaked away, revealing rough, red brick. A wooden, exterior staircase climbed the two-story building to Jayce’s apartment. The stairs switch-backed up to a metal door, a winding path to Rapunzel’s tower.

She dug in her macramé purse for the keys.

The rain, like me, was warm and dripping. The summer storm should have brought relief from the heat, but it only made the morning more oppressive. Dying to be horizontal, I braced one hand against the damp brickwork and sheltered beneath the awning. The pink scar on my palm — a long-ago spider bite — burned. I rubbed it and winced.

Beneath the stairs, a garbage can lid rattled. A long-haired man in a ragbag of stained and torn clothing set the lid down, his hands shaking.

I touched my sister’s arm.

Jayce glanced toward the homeless man. “Hi,” she said, cheerful.

He looked at us and froze. Against his hollow, dirt-stained face, his blue eyes blazed, startling.

“Come on in.” Jayce turned the key in the latch. The door scraped across the linoleum floor of the darkened kitchen and stuck. “I’ve got plenty of food and coffee. My treat.”

The man stared at Jayce, but most men did. It was a part of her magic, of earth and sex and sky. And it didn’t hurt that her clothing never left much to the imagination.

I sighed. My magic was of a more practical bent, bound into knots and knits. It lacked the glamour of Jayce’s love spells and the drama of Lenore’s mediumship, but my practical magic came in handy. Magic was the only possible explanation for the romance novels I wrote on the side selling as well as they did.

The homeless man ducked and skittered down the alley, his footsteps echoing. His filthy gray coat flapped behind him like wings, as if he were about to launch himself into the sky. He disappeared behind the corner.

“He’ll be back when he’s ready.” Jayce rammed her bare shoulder against the unyielding door. It wrenched open with a metallic squeal. “Did the hospital say when we can visit Ellen?”

Yawning, I raked my fingers through my hair and followed her inside the narrow kitchen. “They said they’d have the test results by eleven, but we can visit her any time.” I shivered in the air conditioning and hitched my over-sized purse up my shoulder. The cool air coiled around me, sticking my jeans and now nearly sheer white top unpleasantly to my skin.

“You could have called me,” Jayce said. “I’d have gone with you to the hospital.” She flipped on the lights. The kitchen was modern, with gleaming metal counter tops and a state-of-the-art dishwasher.

I forced a smile through my exhaustion. “Then we both would have been useless today.” We took turns spending nights with our aunt for exactly this reason. Every other week it seemed we were at the hospital. I wasn’t sure how long we could go on like this. Ellen had to get better soon. I didn’t know if her illness had affected her magic, or if it was simply beyond it. In either case, her magic wasn’t holding it at bay. Neither were Jayce’s potions or Lenore’s shamanic journeys, and I’d never had any healing talent.

Fortunately, my practice as a business and estate attorney was light, so light I could moonlight as a romance writer. It was easy to schedule appointments for the afternoons, when I was more awake after a night spent with our aunt. And my writing happened in my spare time. Since I hadn’t had a date in forever, I had a lot of spare time.

“Have you called Lenore?” Jayce asked.

“No. It’s too early, and there’s nothing we can do. I’ll call Lenore when I wake up, unless you want to do the honors.” The bookstore where our other sister worked didn’t open until noon, and Lenore was a late riser.

“No. You talked to the doctors. She’ll want to hear it from you.”

Another jaw-snapping yawn, and I mounted the stairs. “Guest bed?”

“You know the way.”

Halfway up the stairs, I paused. The atmosphere felt odd, off. The coldness of the A/C had the chill of a morgue, and in my mind’s eye I saw a metal table in a tiled room, and the shape of a woman’s form beneath a white sheet.

I shook my head, ridding myself of the vision I’d conjured. My writerly imagination worked best when I hovered between sleep and wakefulness, as I was now. But I didn’t want to imagine or write, I wanted to sleep, and I continued up the stairs. The toe of my Mary Jane caught on the last step, and I nearly tumbled, face first, onto the kilim rug covering the distressed wood floor.

Go back.

Startled, I looked toward the white-painted, brick alcove, where ivy framed the space above a couch. Nobody was there.

We’ve all got voices in our heads (I think). Call them angels or intuition, madness or ego. In the past I’d had feelings — whispers of a truth. But this time, this voice, sounded as if it had been shouted in my left ear.

I rubbed my neck and glanced into Jayce’s open bedroom. The bed was unmade, patterned throw pillows jumbled across it, an open magazine on the floor. I walked toward the peeling, white door to the tiny guest room.

Head cocked, listening, I didn’t notice the discarded, stiletto heel. I stepped on it and cursed. In Jayce’s place, stray stilettos were par for the course, and I should have been more watchful.

But a knot, tight and untidy, formed in my chest.

Something was wrong.

My heart thumped too fast, and I turned, suddenly wide awake.

My sister screamed.

“Jayce!” I thundered down the wooden stairs and pinballed off a wall, my ankle twisting on the final step into the kitchen.

“Here,” she choked out. “Oh, God.”

I brushed past the brown and gray, ikat-patterned curtain into the café.

Jayce stood on the customer side of the dark-wood counter and stared at a low table.

I took another step inside the room. Its natural brick walls, lined with paintings and rugs, seemed to have pulled in a damp chill from the air conditioning and amplified it. A spider plant hanging above the counter was swinging. Jayce gripped a watering can to her chest.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong? Not another mouse?” Jayce hated mice, but she refused to kill them, instituting a catch-and-release program. And anybody but Jayce was in charge of the catch.

She tore her gaze from the table. “She’s dead.”

I lurched sideways, the life force draining from my body. Not Ellen. Not yet. Not now. Our aunt had cared for us since our mom had died in childbirth, and our dad had died… Not Ellen. Icicles pierced my heart. “Ellen?” I whispered.

“Alicia. Alicia Duarte.” Jayce’s voice cracked. “She’s dead.”

“What?” Whipping around the counter, I came to stand beside my sister. I stared.

The newspaper editor Alicia Duarte lay on the floor between a wooden table and two, brown-cushioned chairs. Blood pooled beneath her blond head on the bamboo floor. Her eyes stared, blank, at the ceiling. For a wild moment I believed she wasn’t real. It was a trick. The body was wax. I was dreaming.

My stomach rolled, sluggish. Someone had done this to her. I scanned the café, my breath coming short and fast, but we were alone.

Shocked, I looked to my sister. Jayce’s green eyes were wide, her forehead damp in spite of the arctic air conditioning. But there was something else in her gaze.

Guilt.

That snapped me out of my fear. What was Alicia Duarte doing in my sister’s café? “Why is she dead?” It was a stupid question, but my brain and my mouth seemed disconnected.

“How should I know why she’s dead?”

“She’s in Ground! Why is she in your coffee shop?”

“I don’t know!” Jayce clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, God. Alicia.” She fumbled her way to a chair and sat, gripping the watering can.

Movements stilted, I walked to the wall phone behind the counter and dialed the police.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

“This is Karin Bonheim. I’m at Ground Café on Main Street. We’ve found a dead woman.” The front entrance didn’t appear broken into. Its red-framed windows were intact. And the rear kitchen door had been locked. How the hell had Alicia gotten inside the closed café?

The dispatcher squawked into the receiver, and I hung up the phone. My stomach rolled. Jayce’s look of guilt… I’d seen it too many times to mistake it, though I hadn’t seen it often in the last few years. Jayce had outgrown that particular emotion.

I bit my lower lip. It was no secret Jayce was better friends with Alicia’s husband, Brayden, than with Alicia. Could Jayce have given Brayden a key? Had he come here, and then his wife somehow… And there’d been an argument…

I swallowed. Whatever had happened, my sister couldn’t have been involved.

But why was Alicia’s body here?

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

Sirens wailed outside the café.

I touched my sister’s arm. “How did she get inside Ground?”

Jayce’s mouth opened, closed. She stared at Alicia’s corpse, sprawled behind the wooden table. The morning sky lightened, brightening the square windows, the polished tables, the funky chairs. “She couldn’t have.”

Maybe if I’d paid more attention to my own magic, I would have seen this coming. But I’d never had Jayce and Lenore’s talent. And I’d been so wrapped up in the day-to-day grind of work and my aunt, my magical work had fallen by the wayside.

But this moment called for logic, not spells. “Who else had a key?” If Brayden had one, then people would believe the rumors were true, that something had been going on between Brayden and my sister. But if Brayden had a key, that meant he’d probably killed his wife. And as awful as that was, I preferred it to Jayce being accused of the crime.

“The landlord, I guess,” she said.

“Is that it? None of your other employees?”

She gnawed on her plump, bottom lip. “Darla. In case of emergency.”

I nodded. Darla was the assistant manager. Maybe Darla had lost the key, because I couldn’t imagine her attacking Alicia. In truth, I couldn’t imagine anyone committing murder. Don’t get me wrong — I know it happens. Still, I’m always shocked when I read about a murder in the big city papers. But that sort of thing never happened in Doyle.

Until today.

“I should call Brayden.” Jayce stood, looking around.

Oh, hell no. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

“Why not?”

I focused on a framed watercolor on the far wall. “It’s better the police make the call.”

“But he’ll want to hear it from a friend.”

“It won’t look good if you call him.”

“But it’s Brayden.” Her voice rose. “He can’t hear about his wife from a stranger. It isn’t right.”

“Forget Brayden,” I snapped, fear arcing through me, and instantly regretted my outburst. There was nothing between my sister and Brayden Duarte. Jayce had lots of friends — mainly drinking buddies — and that was all. But Brayden was the kind of guy women tended to think of first — to their cost. “Seriously. The police will be here soon. Ask if you can call him when they get there.”

Twin lines appeared between Jayce’s dark brows, but she nodded.

“And don’t say anything without a lawyer,” I said.

“Can’t you be my lawyer?”

“Criminal law is a whole different animal from estate and business. I’m not qualified. Just don’t say anything.”

“I can’t not say anything,” Jayce said. “It’s Alicia! She’s dead in my coffee shop! How am I going to explain this?”

“Can you?” I wanted her to explain it, to have a reason why Alicia would be here.

Jayce looked away. “I don’t understand what happened — why she’s here or how…”

“Then stick to the facts. Keep it brief. But if they start to push, wait for a lawyer.” I racked my aching brain. I wasn’t friends with any criminal attorneys, but I knew other attorneys who might make recommendations.

Two uniformed officers strode to the front door and rattled the knob.

“I’ll get it.” I let them inside. “Thanks for coming. Alicia is…” But the body on the floor wasn’t Alicia anymore. “Over there.” I motioned toward the corpse.

More uniforms arrived. The fire department (useless under the circumstances). Paramedics (ditto). I looked for Brayden, Alicia’s husband, and was glad when I didn’t see him among the paramedics. The cops separated us, settling me on a stool by the dark, wooden counter and peppering me with questions.

My tongue thickened, clumsy. I hesitated over my words, darting glances at Jayce in the opposite corner of the room.

“We’ll need to get your prints,” the deputy said, “to separate them from any others we may find.”

“Uh, huh,” I said.

The sheriff, grim in her khaki uniform, strode inside the coffee shop.

My shoulders tensed. Authority had arrived, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

Lifting her hat from her curly, blond hair, the sheriff looked down at the corpse. The muscles beneath her face shifted. She blinked rapidly, her hooded, brown eyes widening.

Spotting me, the sheriff crossed the café. “Karin. What happened here?”

“I don’t know. My sister and I returned from the hospital, and we found her.”

Furrows appeared between the sheriff’s blond brows, the lines around her eyes deepening. “The hospital? Your aunt again?”

“She had a fever last night. They’re running some tests.”

“How did Ms. Duarte get inside your sister’s café?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has anyone taken your statement?”

“Yes. That officer, over there.” I pointed at a gangly deputy now talking to a paramedic by the door.

“That’s ridiculous!” Jayce shouted on the opposite side of the café.

The sheriff’s gaze flicked to my sister. “What else can you tell me?”

I tore my attention from Jayce, who gestured animatedly toward Alicia’s body. “Nothing. I’m… we were shocked to find her here. There’s no reason for Alicia to be in the café, not at this hour.”

The sheriff gave me a long look. “Your aunt’s a strong woman. Please give her my best.” Nodding, brisk, she strode to the two detectives questioning Jayce.

More police arrived, and a detective in a cheap-looking business suit became my new interrogator.

My mind rattled. My natural inclination was to cooperate with the police. They were the good guys, right? And the truth should set us both free. But a sharp voice inside me told me it would not.

A man shouted outside the café, and police officers gathered in the open doorway.

“I am simply a concerned citizen,” one of our councilmen, Steve Woodley, proclaimed from outside. Water stained the shoulders of his blue, suit jacket. They say politics are for people too unattractive to be movie stars, but Steve Woodley could have been a star. Fit and muscular, he looked like an aging Patrick Stewart with a silver goatee. Woodley had been a town councilman forever. I suspected the only way he’d leave city hall was feet first.

The sheriff bustled to the door and spoke to Woodley in a low voice.

Woodley wiped a handkerchief across his bald scalp, glittering with moisture. Smoothing the front of his blue business suit (no tie), he nodded. He and the sheriff ambled onto the sidewalk. I strained to hear them and failed. The door swung shut.

A uniformed cop grasped Jayce’s upper arm.

She wrenched away, her chin high.

He motioned her out the front entrance.

I slid from the stool, taking a step toward my sister.

The detective stepped sideways, blocking my way.

The room suddenly felt hot. “Where are they taking my sister?”

“To the station,” the detective said.

“Should I go too?”

He gave me a brief smile, his blue eyes sympathetic. “No. Not yet.”

I hurried to the glassed door. “But where…?”

Outside, the cop put his hand on Jayce’s head and guided her into the back seat of the black and white. She wasn’t in cuffs. That should mean it wasn’t an arrest. And how could they arrest her? They’d only just found the body. They wouldn’t have heard the gossip about Jayce and Brayden Duarte. But there were only three keys, and the café had been locked, and the pool of suspects was narrow. Alicia Duarte hadn’t walked into the café, fallen and hit her head, and then locked up after herself.

She’d been murdered.

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

An SUV drove past, its tires whooshing on the slick street. Water dripped from the awning above Ground’s front door. I drummed my fingers on a brick planter, the blood banging in my brain.

Lenore wasn’t answering her phone.

No surprise there, Lenore was a late riser. But I needed my baby sister. Now.

Carless, I walked toward Lenore’s apartment and rubbed the traces of fingerprint ink from my fingers. The rain had stopped, leaving the town’s streets glossy and black. I walked down the shaded sidewalk, past wine-tasting rooms and nineteenth-century restaurants and shops of brick and wood. The exercise eased the fear twisting my gut, and my muscles loosened, my strides lengthening.

I turned on Arcadia, a sloping street that curved past a park with an old-fashioned gazebo. Doyle Creek splashed, hidden, behind a hillock of grass. Later in the day, children would play in the water, cooling off from the high-foothill summer.

Two more blocks and I was in a residential area. I climbed the exterior steps of a leaning, two-story wood building, its white paint pristine, and I knocked. Waited. Knocked harder.

Lenore opened the door, her honey-colored hair tumbling down the shoulders of her kimono wrap. The wrap exposed most of her gazelle-like legs. She held a leather notebook at her side, and a pen was tucked behind one ear. “What’s happened?”

My heart skipped. “How did you—?”

“You’re banging on my door at eight a.m.” She stepped aside, allowing me inside the cramped apartment. “What’s wrong? Is it Aunt Ellen?”

“She’s in the hospital, but she’s okay. Another infection. But I think Jayce has been arrested.”

Her mouth opened, closed. “Arrested?”

I took another step inside the nearly all-white apartment. The only accent colors came from a few strips of brown and her books. Brown stripes in the white throw rugs. Brown doors. Brown, geometric wall hangings. And books everywhere, overflowing shelves, atop tables, stacked in corners. Otherwise, she was living in a snowstorm of white walls and rugs and sofas.

“It’s Alicia Duarte,” I said. “We found her inside the café, dead.”

Lenore’s fair skin paled. “Dead? But how… Are you sure?”

“We found the body. Jayce came to pick me up at the hospital. She was in a rush to open Ground, so she brought me to her apartment so I could get some sleep there. That’s when we found her, lying beside a table in the café. The blood…” I stared at a pile of paperbacks atop an end table. There’d been so much blood. It must have been a head wound. They bled like crazy. Had she been struck with something? “We called the police. They took Jayce away but not in cuffs. Maybe it’s not as bad as I imagine,” I finished weakly.

Lenore looked out the window, crisscrossed by white-painted metal panes. Tree branches with wide leaves, a shocking splash of emerald, brushed against the glass. “No. You’re right. It’s bad.”

I didn’t ask why she thought so. It was one of Lenore’s talents — she knew things. She knew when someone’s girlfriend was leaving. She knew when death and children were on their way. She knew precisely which authors to book at the store she managed. She just knew.

“And Aunt Ellen?” Lenore asked.

“She had a fever. The hospital’s doing tests, keeping her under observation. She’s got an appointment with Doctor Toeller at eleven to discuss the results.”

“How was she?”

“Disoriented. She kept talking about… you know.”

“I’ll get dressed.” She vanished into her tiny bedroom.

Digging my cell phone from my purse, I dialed lawyers I knew. All but one call went to voice mail — it was still too early in the morning. The attorney I did get through to said he’d have to get back to me with a name.

I clenched the phone and paced the room. Jayce was impulsive. God only knew what she was saying to the cops right now. Had they read her her rights?

Lenore emerged from her bedroom. My sister adjusted the collar of her tunic-style dress, sleeveless and white with pale blue stripes. She cinched a belt at her waist. “Anything?”

My cell phone rang. I took the call, scrawling a name and number in lightning-bolt script on a notepad Lenore slid beneath my fingers. I hung up and drew a ragged breath. “I’ve got a recommendation for a lawyer.” The law firm wasn’t in Doyle, but it was close.

Lenore cracked her knuckles. “Maybe we should talk to Jayce before getting her a lawyer.”

“Jayce’s being questioned now. She doesn’t have a lawyer. She has no one to call. Jayce needs someone at the station to stop her from saying anything she shouldn’t.”

Lenore pressed her lips together and blinked an assent.

I made the call. A man picked up on the third ring. “Giles and Ferris Law, Mike Ferris speaking.” A lawyer who answered his own phone, like me. My heart warmed.

“Hi, this is Karin Bonheim. My colleague, Henry Williams, recommended you. But I believe we met at the retirement dinner for Judge Buchwald last year?”

“Oh, yes. I remember you. Contract law, isn’t it?”

“That and estates.”

“What can I do for you?”

“My sister, Jayce, needs a criminal attorney. She was taken in for questioning—”

“Questioning? Not arrested?”

“I don’t… I’m not sure. They put her in a squad car, but she wasn’t in cuffs.”

“Go on, Miss Bonheim. What was your sister brought in for?”

“Murder. We found a body in her café this morning.”

A pause. “Which café?”

“Ground. We’re in Doyle.”

“All right. I can be at the police station in thirty minutes. Why don’t you meet me there? Oh, and bring your checkbook for the retainer.”

“Thanks.” My shoulders slumped. I’d found someone. I’d fix this. After all, how much trouble could my sister get into in thirty minutes?