Fly by Midnight (14 page)

14

A
fter getting the potion from her sister, Honora returned to the North Woods Station and the next phase of the plan began. Luckily Willow Realm was much closer north than Stargazer City, and it didn’t take her as long to reach her destination. She flew overhead as Ren and Jonathan traveled on the snowcraft out to the old oak in the woods where Jonathan had been hiding. A few of the Woodsman’s wolves trotted along in the snowy wake of the craft. Honora had decided the fewer involved in the process, the better, and that included the Woodsman and his guardian.

Honora had a special task for the wolves.

Once they all arrived at the small cottage carved into a giant tree, Jonathan extinguished the embers still burning in the potbellied stove. Ren tossed the wizard’s food and fuel supply. They broke the lone window and reduced the room to shambles.

Honora handed Jonathan the potion. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“I see no other option, but the hard work starts after I drink this, and that will be up to you. All I have to do is go to sleep. The entire plan hinges on you, dear witch. So, the question really is—are
you
ready?” His eyes welled with concern.

“Of course,” Honora said, hoping to sound convincing, realizing the significance of her current situation. She squared her shoulders. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything. You have my word.” Her choice had been made when she took the case. Now, she had to trust the plan.
Just stay focused on the tasks ahead,
she reminded herself. Ready or not, she couldn’t let the wizard down.

“Thank your sister for me.” Jonathan uncorked the potion, gave her a quick salute, and gulped it down. With a grimace, he swallowed hard and lowered himself down into a battered armchair and leaned his head back. Within a few minutes his breathing slowed. Honora held his hand and stayed by his side as the potion coursed through his system. She trusted her sister and Pepper and their potion-making skills, but her stomach churned as Jonathan finally drifted off. Spit bubbled from his parted lips, and his chest stilled. His breathing stopped.

Honora swallowed hard and exited the tiny cottage. “Ready,” she said, her voice soft, distant.

Ren nodded. “See you back in town,” he said, igniting the snowcraft’s engine with a spell.

Honora lifted her chest, hovering on the cold air. After completing their task, the wolves drifted off into the woods, silently as ghosts.

Honora and Ren met at the sheriff’s station to report the death of Jonathan Rainer. The creature posing as Jane had hired her to find her husband, and that’s exactly what she’d done, but that didn’t mean he had to be alive, and as far as the creature Jane needed to know, her husband had met an unfortunate end in the icy cold North Woods. But Honora realized the only way to pull this off was to do it by the book and let the local law enforcement handle the death and turn over the body.

Rugged, bearded, and heavily armed with two axes strapped to his belt, Sheriff Higgins leaned back in his sturdy chair and listened attentively as Honora explained that she was a private investigator from Stargazer City, searching for a wizard who unfortunately she’d found dead in a small, desolate campsite in the woods not far from Rawlands. Her hired local guide, Ren, backed up her story.

With a shrewd gaze, Higgins scrutinized her, his silence deafening. Finally, he nodded and gathered a few of his deputies to investigate the site and retrieve Jonathan Rainer’s body. It didn’t take long for the team to make its way back to the tree. The campsite was in shambles. Wolf prints covered the area. The animals had left deep gouges in the wooden door, partially pulling it from its rusted hinges. Dismounting his snowcraft, the sheriff waved Honora and Ren back while he and his crew conducted a thorough investigation of the scene.

Honora’s muscles stiffened as she sat perched on the back of Ren’s craft.

Bursts of light filtered from the doorway. Once, at a crime scene, Andreas Corder allowed Honora to watch some detection spells. Law enforcement had a specialized spell kit to investigate a scene—fingerprint potion, aura-reading spells to detect previous occupants, and blood-detection glow charms, which illuminated any area where blood once existed. Sheriff Higgins was probably confirming there was no foul play. A deputy inspected the door, sprinkled powder from a carved horn, waved his wand over the destroyed surface, and stepped back as the door was suddenly covered in glowing yellow fingerprints. The deputy pulled a piece of parchment from his kit, waved his wand, and the fingerprints magically transferred from the door to the page.

“Cool,” Honora said, engrossed in the police work.

Within minutes, the sheriff waved them in. “From our initial search, it appears as if Rainer got trapped inside and ran out of fuel and supplies. He probably died of exposure, but a coroner can tell you more specifically. It happens to even the most experienced campers,” Higgins said, rubbing his short black beard thoughtfully. “Packs of wolves come down from the high north to prowl the area for food.” He turned to Honora. “What’d you say he was up here doing?”

“Actually, he was on sabbatical from his research. He’s an academic and was trying to get away from the pressures of work,” Honora said with a straight face. She wasn’t totally lying. Part of the job of being an effective investigator sometimes meant not telling the whole truth.

The sheriff tilted his head to the side and gave her a half-smile. “He left one pressure for another. City wizards never realize the dangers of the wild until it’s too late.”

It was a wise statement that she completely agreed with. “His wife sent me to find him. She’s terribly worried,” Honora added.

“She had a right to be worried. He had no business coming up here. The weather is too extreme, and the woods too dangerous for academics, especially when they’re alone. Exposure to the elements was swift. His body feels like an ice cube.” Sheriff Higgins’ brow was pinched. His shoulders sagged.

Finding a dead wizard was never easy, so Honora sympathized, but she was glad the potion had been so convincing. “You’re absolutely right. Hiring an experienced guide is crucial.” She nodded to Ren, who just smiled and shook his head at her.

The sheriff motioned to the door, and they returned to the snowcrafts while the deputies secured the body for transport. “I have to write this up and send a report to Stargazer City. I didn’t see any signs of a struggle or that dark magic was involved, so I’m confident in turning over the body to the city police. My deputies will take it back to the station, wrap the deceased, and transport his body back on the Silver Train with a police escort. From the condition of that door, his wife is lucky the wolves didn’t get to him. You probably got here just in time. Another night and there wouldn’t have been much left of him.”

“At least her mind will be at rest.” Honora nodded politely. A wave of relief washed over her. The plan was moving forward smoothly. “You can address your report to Detective Andreas Corder of the Stargazer City Police. He’s familiar with Wizard Rainer’s disappearance and my search.”

Once back at the sheriff’s station, Honora took a moment to compose a letter to the impostor Jane, arranging a meeting with her at the Stargazer City Police Station. Honora added a grim statement that she had bad news, preparing her for the inevitable. Not out of sympathy, because the impostor was a murderous fiend, but because the next stage of the plan depended on believability. Higgins’ report to Detective Corder was sent via a huge golden hawk with enormous talons.
No one messed with police correspondence,
Honora thought as Barnaby flew off with the message.

Jonathan Rainer’s body was prepared and loaded into a pine coffin. Before the sunset, Honora was aboard the Silver Train en route to Stargazer City. She and a young deputy stayed glued to the coffin, traveling inside of the cargo hold, which made for a restless night. Reaching the train station the next morning, the deputy unloaded the body.

Detective Corder stood steely-eyed on the station platform while the coffin floated out of the hold. The Rawlands deputy spoke briefly with him, nodded courteously to Honora, and boarded the train for his return trip.

“I see you found Rainer.” Andreas motioned to the pine box that had been levitated out of a cargo car and onto the platform.

“Yep. And he wasn’t at Ghost Beach,” Honora said. “From his initial findings, Sheriff Higgins determined that he died of natural causes. He couldn’t handle the harsh northern winter. The elements took their toll.” She was hoping that Higgins’ report was enough to keep Jonathan Rainer off an autopsy table. The last thing she needed was to rescue him from the knife.

“Is that so?” The detective rocked back on his heels and turned his attention to the parchment he was holding, which Honora assumed was the report the sheriff sent ahead. “We’ll be doing our own report, but the sheriff did a nice job.”

“Terrible tragedy,” she added. Her gazed solemnly drifted downward. “I was too late to do him any good. I ended up bringing his wife back a dead man.” She looked up as a perfectly timed tear fell from her eye. Honora was laying it on thick.

Andreas patted her on the back. “Don’t blame yourself. You tried harder than I did to track this guy down. I’m still not sure why you bothered, but at least you got your man.” He sighed. “I actually feel sorry for his wife. She was a pain to work with, but she didn’t deserve this. That guy’s put her through enough.”

If he only knew how wrong he is,
Honora thought. She bit her bottom lip to keep herself from saying what she really thought about the impostor Jane. “What will happen now?” she asked.

“We take possession of the body, which will go to the morgue for evaluation. I’ll do the family notification and continue my review of the report submitted by the sheriff of Rawlands and make my determination. It’s mostly routine. Jonathan Rainer’s body should be ready to pick up in a day or two by his wife.”

Honora ran her hands through her hair. “That gives me by tomorrow afternoon at the most,” she mumbled, mentally working out her timeline.

“For what?” Andreas asked. His brow furrowed. “What’s going on with you?”

“Oh, nothing. Sorry.” She cleared her throat, waving him off. “The cold must have gotten to my head. It’s really rough up there.”

“Come on. Let’s get back to the police station. I’ll need to ask you some questions, and I’ve got a pile of paperwork to fill out. Normally, I would pass this on to someone else, but since Rainer worked for the council, it’s got to be done by the book. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee, and you can tell me all about your time in the North.”

“Right,” she said, following behind Jonathan Rainer’s levitating coffin, her nerves racing. “Just what I need, more questions.”

Intent on staying close by in case Jonathan inadvertently woke up from his deep sleep, Honora wrangled her way into the morgue. She’d watched as Jonathan’s body was removed from the pine box, wrapped in gauze, and slid into a metal drawer in the morgue. The attendants had barely noticed him. Didn’t check his vitals, just reviewed the parchment forms and gave him a quick glance. She should’ve been happy they didn’t look too closely at him, but it saddened her just the same.

For the next few hours, Honora endured an onslaught of questions from Andreas. She detailed her trip at least ten times, over and over, until he was satisfied. The impostor Jane had arrived while she was being questioned, so Honora was unable to speak with her prior to the notification. Currently, Honora sat impatiently outside of an interrogation room. The sound of the impostor’s sobs could be heard seeping from under the doorframe.
Very convincing,
Honora thought. The creature posing as Jane was taking the news of her husband’s death hard. Honora wasn’t amused, but she had to play along and make this work for the good of Everland. The door finally swung open, and Andreas asked her inside.

Crumpled tissues littered the desk. Black makeup ringed impostor Jane’s tear-stained eyes. With her form hunched over the table, her shoulders shook. The witch was a mess. She raised her head as Honora entered the room and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. She blew her nose. Honora endured the charade and suppressed her desire to smack the tears right off fake Jane’s face.

“I’m so sorry.” Honora lowered her eyes and slid into the seat next to the
grieving
widow. “I had no idea the search would end this way, or I would have done a better job of preparing you. It was all so sudden. I was tracking down a lead, and suddenly I found him hiding up north in terrible conditions. I should have done more.”

“You did your job, and that’s all I could have asked for,” the impostor Jane said. “I hired you to find my husband, and you did an admirable job. You succeeded where others failed. No one could have suspected that events would turn deadly.” She shook her head. “He had no business being in the wilderness. He wasn’t the survivalist type. Why? Why?” she pleaded with Honora for an answer.

“Why was he there? Oh…um…” Honora fumbled for an answer. She wasn’t going to tell her the
real
reason he went north. “Solitude, I suppose.”

“I guess we’ll never know.” The impostor Jane opened her purse and handed Honora a small bag of gold coins. “This is to cover your fee. I misplaced my gold card.”

“Thank you.” Honora didn’t know what else to say. She scooped up the pouch and slipped it into her shoulder bag. She couldn’t turn down her fee, especially in front of Andreas, who was currently hovering in the doorway. “What will you do now that Jonathan has passed? Will there be a burial service? I’d like to pay my respects.” Honora hoped the preparations for a memorial service would give her an extra day before Jonathan woke up. After the overnight trip back to Stargazer City, she still had three days until he revived naturally.