Wicked by Any Other Name Read online

  Her answer was more kisses, then a soft growl as Bogie perked up and looked out past the edge of the roof. Stasi followed his gaze and saw a black and white streak of fur appear at the edge of the backyard.

  “Be nice to him,” she whispered. “He doesn’t have a wonderful home like you do.” She stood up and stepped closer to the edge. “If you’re hungry, sweetie, come on up,” she called out softly.

  The black and white Border collie stepped carefully past the last remaining flowers and climbed the back stairs to the second floor. Stasi met him down there and let him into the kitchen.

  Pretty soon the visitor was happily chowing down on the last of the beef stew, while Bogie watched him from a distance. The smaller dog’s soft growls didn’t deter the larger animal from his meal.

  “What’s going—oh Stasi!” A sleep-rumpled Blair appeared in the kitchen. “You’re feeding that mutt again?”

  The Border collie sat down and lifted his paw. His tongue lolled to one side in a large doggy smile.

  “He doesn’t have a home.”

  “And he’s not getting one here. Look at him. He’s not some scrawny stray. He looks pretty well fed to me.” Blair dug her fingers into her scalp. “For all we know he has fleas.”

  The dog whined and offered his paw again, bobbing it up and down for effect.

  “Fine.” Blair accepted the paw and dropped it just as quickly. “But you’re still not sleeping here.”

  “It’s cold outside,” Stasi argued on his behalf.

  Before Blair could take up the argument, the dog loped over to her, stood on his hind legs, and covered her face with slurpy kisses, then twisted around and managed to nose open the kitchen door, running out and down the steps, barking a thank-you along the way.

  “Ugh!” Blair gagged, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “Dog germs!”

  Stasi tried unsuccessfully to hide her smile. “Maybe next time you’ll keep your mouth closed.” She set the empty dish in the sink and rinsed it out. She filled the teakettle and set it on the stove, then pulled out two earthenware mugs. After rummaging through a substantial collection of tea bags, she selected lemon and dropped them into the mugs while Blair picked up a covered plate and placed it on the table.

  “I probably should have brought these out for dessert, but this works even better. Mrs. Benedict dropped off a plate of lemon squares this afternoon,” she explained. “She made a point of letting me know she made them and they weren’t from ‘that place.’”

  Stasi shook her head. “Her nose has been out of joint since Fresh Baked Goods opened up last summer. How many years did people tell her she should open a bakery? We all told her she shouldn’t give away all her baked goods. But she always said she wanted to create on her own schedule and not have to worry about keeping a shop filled with cookies, pies, and cakes. I think she wishes now she had taken our advice.”

  “Very true. But it got really ugly when Mr. Chalmers said that their oatmeal raisin cookies were the best he’d ever eaten. He made it worse by going back for more.”

  Stasi winced at the memory of the day Mrs. Benedict had learned that her devoted beau was unfaithful to her when it came to baked goods. The elderly woman had drawn herself up to her full barely five-foot height and informed the eighty-three-year-old widower who had been courting her for the last fifteen years that he shouldn’t expect ever to have another bite of her pot roast and to just forget about Thanksgiving dinner. To date she had kept her word, and he now ate his meals at the local restaurants instead of the widow’s cozy cottage. “He cut his own throat with that remark.”

  “And now he’s eating all his meals at Sit ’N Eat and Grady’s BBQ Pit.”

  “He had no choice after he set fire to his kitchen when he tried heating up some baked beans.”

  Stasi poured hot water over the tea bags, then carried the mugs over to the table. She picked up a lemon square and bit into it, moaning with joy as the tart taste of lemon exploded in her mouth. “Everyone loves the bakery, but all I know is that I tried one of their sugar cookies and ended up with horrible heartburn. Give me Mrs. Benedict’s lemon squares any day.” She paused and lifted her head, almost sniffing the air. She couldn’t put a name to it, but she knew something was very different.

  “You feel it too?” Blair asked, stirring her tea with a spoon even though she hadn’t added anything to it.

  Stasi, who always smiled and was cheerful, looked glum enough to double as the Grinch. “The disorder in the air is probably because of the lawsuit,” she said without much conviction. “It’s nothing around here. It’s all me.”

  Blair shook her head. “No, I think there’s more to it than that. This has been slowly building up for a while and it feels heavier now. More unsettling.”

  “Well, it can’t happen now.” Stasi selected another lemon square and ate this one more slowly, savoring the combination of buttery pastry and tangy citrus. “I’m planning on a wonderful Samhain. Jazz, Thea, and Lili promised they’d be here. Maggie might even make it, and she hasn’t been able to come for the last three years.”

  “I’ll be surprised if Thea stays more than twenty-four hours. She’d want to spend most of her time up at one of the resorts having massages and spa treatments. And Lili said the hospital is shorthanded again and she doesn’t see how she can get away right now.”

  Stasi pinched off a bit of lemon square and offered it to Bogie, who gobbled it down and gave her his best cute pathetic puppy expression in hopes of getting more.

  “We have a lunar eclipse coming, coupled with Mercury retrograde,” Blair reminded her. “Along with warnings of early snow storms and a long and cold winter. It’s as if everything’s happening at once.”

  “Fresh snow means skiers, which also means tourists in town and even some staying for a few days at the B&B.” Stasi hesitated over another lemon square, shrugged “why not?” and picked it up.

  “True. I have all those vintage Halloween cards and decorations I need to get out.” Blair didn’t hesitate taking another square. Mrs. Benedict’s baked goods were too excellent to pass up.

  “I think we need to check the lake.” Stasi threw the end of her shawl over her shoulder and looked toward the kitchen window that faced the woods. The burnt orange and cream print tiers were pulled across the bottom part of the window, but she knew what she would see out there anyway.

  “Moonstone Lake isn’t going anywhere. What we need to do is find you a good lawyer.”

  “I would need more than a good lawyer. I’d need an awesome one. Trevor Barnes is considered the best, and he’s lost so few cases other attorneys don’t even like to go up against him. They always urge their clients to settle.”

  “Says who? Besides, he’s never gone up against any of us.” Blair put on her “revenge is good” face. As a witch whose gift was for revenge spells, she knew the art very well. While she never did anything that would fatally harm someone, she did believe in making miscreants suffer greatly for their sins.

  “I don’t know why I had to be the first.” Stasi stared at the now empty plate. “How many lemon squares were there?”

  “I dunno. I think Mrs. Benedict brought over a couple dozen.” Blair also stared at the plate. “Do you think Bogie snuck up here and ate some?”

  Stasi shook her head. “No, we sat here and ate every one.” She rubbed her tummy, starting to feel the effects of sugar overload. “I’ll get the ginger tea.”

  ***

  “When do I get my day in court?”

  Carrie Snyder Ferguson Simpson James Anderson accepted the cup of coffee Mae handed her and took two sips, setting it down on top of the notes Trevor Barnes had spread out on his desk for a case he needed to file that morning. Mae cast a disapproving glance at Carrie, then stared at the cup, which carefully shifted itself to the right and off the papers. Mae smiled at her boss’s look of disapproval and disappeared from
the office, literally.

  Trevor pushed his dark blond hair off his forehead. He’d get a haircut today, he thought. He looked at his new client and narrowed his blue eyes. She was a nightmare, he realized belatedly.

  A powerful wizard who dealt with every facet of preternatural law, Trevor Barnes was less used to dealing with the residents of the non-supernatural community. He didn’t take many cases where mortals were involved, except those few that caught his interest. He was no longer amazed when humans tried to sue a vampire for breach of contract because the vampire refused to turn them. They refused to consider that it was against vampire law to turn someone for money. But there were many unscrupulous vampires out there, and it was better in Trevor’s view if the vamp absconded with the money, leaving the human to deal with his still-mortal condition, rather than abandon a newly turned vampire to fend for itself until an enforcer from the Vampire Protectorate had to be called out to destroy it before it harmed too many others.

  He rarely interacted with witches as plaintiffs or defendants since they didn’t get on well with wizards and vice versa, and they tended not to cross into each other’s jurisdictions. And now he was going to be pushed into dealing with one in court. He had a strong feeling this client wasn’t going to settle.

  He had been surprised when Carrie Anderson marched into his office two months ago and informed him she wanted to retain him to sue a local witch for alienation of affection. When Trev asked her why she didn’t seek justice through the witches’ community, she tartly informed him that they protected their own. She wanted justice and knew he would get it for her.

  Trev’s first instinct was to turn her down, since he really wasn’t all that excited about having a mortal for a client, but the idea of suing a witch because she had ruined a woman’s love life tempted him. Business had been rather bland lately, with only the usual dry cases that didn’t offer him a lick of challenge. It wasn’t long before he regretted his decision. It had only taken a bit of research on his client to realize that the woman was pretty much bonkers, and now he was well and truly stuck with her thanks to the Wizards’ Code in legal matters.

  Carrie was suspicious of everyone, and her past husbands headed the list. Her paranoia about being cheated on drove her first husband to an oil rig in the Atlantic with a vow never to return. Her second husband took off for Alaska with the same promise. Number three did the unthinkable and died of a heart attack, leaving behind several children and a pile of debts that prompted Carrie to waste no time latching on to husband number four. Trev’s investigation showed that number four was now ready to bail out. After meeting Carrie, Trev wasn’t surprised, except the man had made Carrie’s worst nightmare come true. He’d cheated on his wife with “anything goes” Jeanne Tritt and was now happily living in sin.

  Carrie tucked a stray ash blond curl behind her ear. Always well-groomed himself, Trev couldn’t help but admire the woman’s regular features and trim figure attired in a peachy-pink sweater topping soft gray tailored pants. Her brown eyes were shadowed with worry. She chewed off her lipstick as she looked at Trev as if he would be able to solve all her problems in one fell swoop. But he didn’t need his wizard senses to alert him that there was something in her eyes and manner that was just a bit off. He wondered if all her ex-husbands were first drawn to her delicate looks, then, once the marriage license was signed, sealed, and delivered, they ended up leaving her because there was something lacking in the woman herself.

  An excellent example of beauty being skin deep, because I just bet the interior isn’t a match for the exterior.

  Carrie started on a familiar tack. “If she did this to me, she’s done it to others. She needs to pay for interfering with peoples’ lives. The spells on the lingerie I bought there should have brought Kevin home, and it didn’t. He’s still with that bimbo.” She pulled a tissue out of her bag and dabbed at a smudge of mascara at the corner of her eye. It only smeared more.

  “Mrs. Anderson, I’m sure Ms. Romanov knows she cannot utilize any spells having to do with romance,” Trev used his best soothing voice. “That is Cupid’s domain, and he doesn’t take it lightly if someone tries to interfere. He would even be within his rights to register a complaint against her.”

  “She’s a witch, isn’t she?” Carrie screeched, displaying the anger that, along with her jealousy, Trev was positive had driven her previous husbands away from home. “Everyone knows they’ll do what they like. Sure, people in town think she and Blair are sweet and wonderful, but I’ve read stories about other witches who cast spells on people, horrible dark spells. Who says they’re not up there doing that to us, to make us feel we love them!”

  “There are rules governing their behavior,” he explained patiently. “Punishment is harsh for those who go against laws set down eons ago.”

  “And she broke them.” Carrie’s eyes narrowed. “I used to work in a library and I know how to do research, Mr. Barnes. Stasi Romanov isn’t what this town thinks she is. At first, I wanted to tell everyone just what a monster she is,” Carrie hissed. She didn’t back down, even when Trev’s expression grew so cold the temperature in the office dropped a good twenty degrees. “But so many people think she’s this sweet wonderful woman; I knew they wouldn’t believe me. That’s when I went into LA and talked to some strange people and discovered she could be sued.”

  If Trev had been mortal, he would have been downing aspirin by the bottle by now, if not hitting the nearest bar. He only wished the Code didn’t stipulate that once you took a case you couldn’t dump it. The last time he had wanted to dump a case was when Bernardo, a mountain dragon, was suing a knight for brutality. The case had presented some technicalities that had fascinated him, but his client was so volatile that his court robes had ended up singed, and he couldn’t get the smell of smoke out of his hair for months.

  He was beginning to think Bernardo was a pip compared to Carrie Snyder Ferguson Simpson James Anderson.

  “Wizards’ Court handles matters in its own time,” he said. “Papers have been filed, Ms. Romanov has been served, and we should be given a court date soon.”

  “We better.” Carrie stood up. “I’m not a patient woman, Mr. Barnes. I want her to lose everything, so she’ll leave town.”

  He likewise stood up, inwardly grateful she was leaving. “Perhaps you need to do some further research into Wizards’ Court, Mrs. Anderson. Threats are never a good thing.” He walked her to his office door, partly from courtesy but mostly to make sure she was well out of his office. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Trev sighed as he turned back toward his desk.

  “Didn’t I tell you working with humans would only give you grief?” Mae, his secretary/assistant/surrogate mother/pain-in-the-ass, spoke from her spot behind her highly polished walnut desk, on which a stray sheet of paper never dared to land. He had inherited her six hundred years ago when his father retired to take a seat on the Wizards’ Council and she still treated him as if he was recently out of law school. She patted the bun sitting primly on top of her head. Not one strand of her silver hair was ever out of place. It was always pulled back in a French twist, her dark suits never revealed a crease or wrinkle, and she ruled his office with an iron fist. The narrow red-rimmed glasses that sat on her aquiline nose were unnecessary, but suited her take-charge manner. He had to pay his paralegals a small fortune because otherwise they wouldn’t last more than fifty years with General Mae in charge.

  Trev was tempted to remind her that she had made the appointment in the first place, but what was the point? Mae never made a mistake—and was the first to say so.

  “Ms. Romanov called.” Mae slapped a stack of pink message slips on his hand.

  “Who’s her lawyer?”

  “She doesn’t have one.” Mae turned back to her computer monitor, which glowed with characters in an ancient language. “It would be better if you drove up there to see her personally.” She gave him a po
inted look over her glasses.

  He rubbed his jaw with his hand thoughtfully. “It would be better to wait until she retained counsel.”

  “Our law doesn’t follow the same rules as mortals,” she reminded him. “You can see the defendant without her counsel present. It didn’t seem that Ms. Romanov was too eager to hire anyone to represent her. My Russian is a bit rusty, but I’d say she is not happy about this lawsuit. But I’m certain your charm can persuade her to settle this case amicably and as soon as possible.”

  “That would be nice,” Trevor thought. But his client certainly wasn’t in that frame of mind.

  Trev thought of the workload on his desk. The cases he needed to review. Others that had to be filed. The meetings that filled his calendar.

  But when Mae told him he had to be somewhere, he damn well better go there.

  Mae was never wrong.

  Chapter 2

  “Wooee! Look at that one,” Horace muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “You think they’re real? Boy, I’d love to get my claws on those babies.”

  Stasi put the stack of La Perla bras and thongs she’d just priced to one side. The eight-inch grayish-stone gargoyle sat on the counter by her elbow. He had an elongated snout that resembled a monkey’s, long arms and short legs, along with pointy horns and leathery-looking wings. More than once customers had commented on Stasi’s choice of décor, and she had recently had a few complaints about the sudden appearance of the gargoyle in one of the dressing rooms when a customer—always a shapely one—was trying on lingerie. She glared at Horace.

  “You’re gross.”

  “You’re repressed.”