A 'Charm'ing Investigation
An Inkling of Magic - Chapter 28
Elspeth never would have thought that she’d wish to be seated anywhere other than in the obscurity of the back row, but siting and waiting anxiously for her turn to be go with the officer to where the detectives waited outside to talk with everyone one at a time was proving difficult. She shared what she hoped was an encouraging smile with Kieran when his name was called. It hopefully wouldn’t be long now.
“Don’t worry about the detectives,” Derek whispered as Kieran followed the officer out of the room, “I’ll be able to handle them when its our turn.”
“How? We’re not going to be called up together,” Elspeth asked skeptically, she had no doubts about his ability to steer them away from any difficult or awkward to answer questions if they were together but that wasn’t a guarantee.
She could hear the smirk in his voice. “Oh, we will. Just leave that to me.”
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“Elspeth?”
Backpack in hand, Elspeth stood up with a shaky breath when Mr. Ossawa finally called her name.
“May I go with her?” Derek asked, the unexpected question startling their teacher and the few other students that still remained in the room awaiting their turns.
“I’m sorry, but the detectives prefer to speak with everyone one at a time,” the officer escorting Elspeth said.
Disappointed despite the expected answer, Elspeth cast Derek a grateful smile at the attempt as she slid from her chair and went to met the officer at the front of the classroom.
Derek’s eyes flashed an almost wild shade of green as his lips set into a thin line of determination. “Please?” he said, an odd inflection in his voice as he pressed. “I’m sure they won’t mind this once.”
Elspeth’s eyes went wide and she froze in mid-step as she recognized the tone of Derek’s voice and what he was doing. The air even prickled against her skin like sparks of electricity, sharper than it had the last time. She knew he’d said he couldn’t control the amount of charm that he used when calling upon it and that every ounce he possessed would be used at once, yet somehow it felt stronger than before. Perhaps because he was more desperate this time for it to work. Her eyes darted between their teacher and the officer and she watched as their eyes momentarily glazed over.
Blinking rapidly and, unbeknownst to them, shaking the magical cobwebs from their head. Elspeth watched with baited breath as Mr. Ossawa turned to say something to the officer.
“I don’t see the harm in letting them go together, do you?” his smooth, voice crooned.
Awed by Derek’s audacity, relief flooded her when she saw the officer shake his head.
“No, no, I don’t think there’ll be any issue,” Officer Goretts said before turning back to Derek. “Alright, kid, grab your stuff and go with her.”
Elspeth shook her head when she met his smiling eyes as he rose and did as he was told, a smirk dancing on his lips.
“Thank you, Sir.”
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The detectives were huddled together staring down and whispering over a small spiral bound notebook that one of them – Detective Harris, Elspeth thought it was – was holding in his hand. The man, Harris, was tall with dirty blond hair cut short at the sides, but slightly shaggy on top and – from what she could see by how far he had to bend down to whisper with his partner – a little scruff on his face of a beard making up its mind whether it wanted to grow or not. He was practically a giant compared the petite, bronze skinned lady next to him with tightly curled, black hair that – even pulled up and out of her way into a pony tail at the back of her head – fell past her shoulders and who looked like she could be blown over by a good, stiff wind – looks, Elspeth was sure, that were deceiving given she wouldn’t be sporting a detectives badge or carrying herself with such confidence and authority otherwise.
Their heads popped up when the door clicked behind Derek and Elspeth.
“I’m sorry, but we’re only talking to one-at-a-time so one of you is going to have to go back in the room and wait your turn,” the woman, Detective Ramirez, said firmly and with mild yet distinct accent to her strong voice, her brown eyes fixed on Derek who’d come to stand behind Elspeth.
She couldn’t see it, but she didn’t doubt that Derek smiled despite the no-nonsense in the detective’s voice or the way neither detective looked like they were in the mood for playing any sort of game.
“The officer inside said it would be alright,” Derek replied smoothly, the charm so thick in his voice that Elspeth found it hard to believe that no one else could feel the power in it, “when I asked, he was sure you wouldn’t mind.”
As like inside, their eyes glazed over for just a moment while their faces turned placid.
“Mind?” she heard Detective Harris mumble as if in a daze before snapping to looking more alert once again, “no, no, we don’t mind.”
“Well, I suppose since you’re already here,” Ramirez said, not sounding a great deal less dazed then her partner.
They cleared their throats and blinked a few times, before coming back to themselves and continuing on like it had been their plan the entire time to talk to both of them at once.
Detective Harris pulled out a small stack of photographs from his back pocket and handed them to Elspeth. “Have either of you seen or heard from any of these people in the last week or so?”
Elspeth frowned and thumbed through the stack – her neck and back tingling lightly as Derek brushed against her when he leaned forward to look at them over her shoulder. She recognized a good few of the people in the photographs – there was Arnold Baker, the shy computer geek she shared a class or two with who preferred to play rpgs with people online that he’d never met than talk to anyone in class; Lisa Haskins who graduated with Farren and for whom he’d had a terrible crush during his junior year that Elspeth had never let him forget as she’d caught him penning some of the most dreadful poetry she’d ever read; Mr. Miguel Hernandez who used to teach art at the school; Latisha Brooks, one of the few popular girls in school who hadn’t joined in on the ridiculing against her; and then, lastly, there was Akane Kobayashi, the kitsune.
She felt the breeze against her skin as Derek shook his head. “No, I haven’t. I mean, I recognize several of them, of course, but it’s been longer than that since I’ve interacted with any of them.”
She was still staring at the photographs when the woman, Ramirez, spoke directing her question to her. “And what about you…,” she asked, turning to Elspeth. Her voice trailed off and, looking up at her, Elspeth caught the foggy look of confusion on her face as she shook her head before continuing, “I’m sorry, what was your name? I can’t seem to remember getting it.”
“Elspeth. Elspeth MacGearney.”
“Well, Elspeth, have you seen or heard from any of these people recently?”
Elspeth shook her head. “Not really. I saw Akane in passing just yesterday, but that was all. Arnold keeps pretty much to himself, Latisha and I aren’t in the same crowd and probably wouldn’t be caught dead talking to me, and I’ve hardly seen Lisa or Mr. Hernandez since the one graduated and the other retired.”
“And the others?”
She shrugged. “I’m sure I’ve seen them at some point or other, but I’m not really the girl most in this school, or even town for that matter, like to spend time with. If they do say anything to me, it’s usually something I’m trying my best to not hear. So, even if they had, I probably would have blocked it out and not been able to remember it anyway.”
They frowned at that. “But you say you saw Akane only yesterday? When and where was this?”
“Right here in school,” Elspeth replied, thinking back to that morning, “it was shortly after my brother had dropped me off. I was on my way to my locker and she was at hers. I smiled at her, but we didn’t talk.”
“And did you see her at any point after that or have any idea where she might be now?” Harris asked without looking up from his notebook as he scribbled down notes from their replies.
Derek jumped in before she could reply. “What’s all this about?” he asked, playing ignorance as he acted all agitated – likely mimicking at least a few of the reactions his sensitive hearing had overheard from other’s they’d questioned Elspeth assumed as he kept asking questions and deflecting from their own. “Are they in some kind of trouble?”
The detectives pursed their lips and shared a look, a silent conversation in their eyes. Eventually, the woman’s shoulders slumped and she turned her attention back to Elspeth and Derek.
“They’re not in any trouble that we’re aware of,” Detective Ramirez replied carefully, her accent which had been only slight at the start of the interview getting stronger as she cherry picked her words. “We’re just following up on concerns from their loved ones who reported they’ve not seen or heard from them in at least twenty-four hours. So, again, do either of you have any idea where Akane or any of the others might be now? Particularly you, Elspeth, as, so far, you’re the last person we know of that can recall seeing her after she got to school yesterday. According to her teachers, she didn’t make it to any of her classes.”
“She wasn’t the only one,” she thought she heard Derek whisper brazenly behind her, fresh out of ways to deflect again without resorting to charm. To her relief, no one else seemed to hear it and Derek was apparently not willing to chance another dose of charm on them. It would take weeks as it was for the affects to wear off.
“Away with the faeries?” Elspeth laughed nervously, drawing a snort from Derek who had to hide his smile behind his hand as he coughed into it to cover his laughter.
Thankfully, Elspeth’s own cheeky remark was just met with eye-rolls before dismissing them with a card and strict orders to call them if either should see or hear from any of the missing persons.
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“You answered that brilliantly!” Derek burst grinning from ear-to-ear when they were out of ear range of the detectives. “You hardly needed my help back there at all.”
Elspeth felt herself blush at the pride in his voice. “It was just a foolish remark that slipped off my tongue before I could bite it back,” she confessed, shrugging the compliment off. “I was so nervous I blurted the first thing that popped into my head.”
He shook his head as he lead them further down the hall, towards the front of the school. “No, it was smart one – close enough to the truth, but far away from being believable. If you’d tried to think your answer through you would have run the risk of showing your hand and tipping them off.”
“Tipping them off to what, exactly?” a lilting voice asked to their left bringing them up short as they rounded the last corner, putting them in sight of way out.
Elspeth bit back a flinch. Sucking in a deep breath, she turned to find both Kieran and Niamh leaning casually against the glass walls with their arms crossed and watching them with identical expressions of suspicion and determination. If anyone had had doubts about their being related before they would have been dispelled in an instant watching them. She opened her mouth to reply, but was quickly stopped when Kieran held up a hand.
“Ah, ah,” he said, “no more of your runaround, Els m’love. The truth this time, if you will.”
Beside her, Derek groaned. “Do we really have to go through all this again?”
Through the doors, Elspeth spied Farren’s car pull into the parking lot and sighed with relief.
“Ask Farren,” she said as she started forward again towards the door, her pace picking up with each step until she was nearly at a run. He was already getting out of his car in a hurry when she pushed through the doors. “Farren!”
They met about half-way, each huffing a little as they tried to catch their breath, while an immensely confused Kieran and Niamh rushed to catch them up followed by an unconcerned Derek strolling behind them.
“What are you doing here?” Elspeth asked, still breathing hard, “classes wouldn’t have been letting out yet normally, not for another couple of hours.”
“I heard about the disappearances at work,” Farren replied, eyes full of worry, “it’s all anyone was talking about and when someone said they’d heard detectives had been sent to the school asking questions, I couldn’t get over here fast enough. Filed for some unpaid leave I hadn’t used yet and hightailed it over here before anyone could say otherwise. Is it related to what happened to us yesterday?”
“No question,” Elspeth replied ignoring the bafflement radiating off of her friends, “it was only a matter of time before someone noticed. Though how it got reported to the police instead of Mrs. Hythe I don’t know.”
“What does our English teacher have to do with any of this?” she heard a perplexed Kieran cut in sharply. “For that matter, what do you have to do with any of this and just what on bleeding earth is going on?!”
Her brother gave her an exasperated look. “You still haven’t told them yet?”
She shrugged, “there hasn’t exactly been a lot of opportunities.”
“In other words, you mean that you’ve been studiously avoiding them so there wouldn’t be.”
“Can you blame me?!” Elspeth blurted at last, finally at the end of her tether.
Around her, Kieran and Niamh looked equal parts hurt and bewildered, Farren hung his head in resignation, and Derek looked vaguely bored apart from the sympathy she could read in his eyes which had softened to a light spring green. The parking lot around them was devoid of life as everyone had either already been let go early or else, Elspeth imagined, still waited their turn for questioning as the detectives went classroom-to-classroom interviewing everyone in the school. There would be no way Mrs. Hythe wouldn’t learn of the disappearances now, but, somehow, Elspeth didn’t think she should just leave it in the older librarian’s hands to resolve. Call it pride, but Isulf and the fae had come to her, not Mrs. Hythe, and she didn’t intend to break her deal with the winter fae just because things had gotten trickier.
“No,” he answered at last, “I can’t.” Lifting his head, Elspeth couldn’t miss the look of steal that had entered his blue eyes. “So what now?”
“Now?” Elspeth said, “Now we do our own investigation starting with the only other woman not tied to this mess who might have half a clue – Granny.”
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“Why do you have to go with him, instead of with us?” Niamh asked, glaring daggers at Derek with her arms crossed.
Elspeth rolled her eyes heavenward praying for endurance. “Because, there’s not enough room in the truck for as all to go with Farren and I don’t trust either of you to not try to kill Derek if you went with him.”
Hearing him snicker, she tossed the fae in question a warning glare that he was not at all helping matters, only to be met with his brilliant, smirking self with eyes burning with mischievous glee and false innocence.
Her friend grumbled in Gaelic under her breath, but when she didn’t offer any counter argument she knew her assessment was correct. Chancing a look at Kieran, she found he didn’t look any more pleased by the arrangement than his sister.
“So,” Elspeth said, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at Kieran when it looked like he was about to try his own hand at arguing. Choosing wisdom over valour, his mouth snapped shut and Elspeth continued with unwavering certitude as she took charge, “unless you happened to drive here yourself, you get to go with Farren while I’ll go with Derek in his car.”
It was a stare off. Out in the open where anyone could see them if they happened to be passing by and instantly be concerned by the intensity of the stand off – both standing there outside her parent’s truck with their arms crossed and Kieran returning Elspeth’s glare and infusing it with every ounce of how he felt about her plan. It wasn’t raining at least, which was something, but Elspeth had an inking it might have less to do with the season taking pity on them and more to do with the smug fae standing beside her grinning as brightly as the sun now warming them with its rays.
“Fine,” he ground out at last, spitting the word out like it was salt water.
Her shoulders heaved in relief and she gave her friend a conciliatory smile before hugging him and Niamh both. “Thank you,” she whispered when she pulled back.
She hated being at odds with them. Aside from her family and Mr. Grimmlich, they had been her only true friends, and she and Farren theirs, so she knew how hard the last while must have been on them with her seemingly pulling away only for them to find her in the company of the one guy they’d all considered ‘the enemy.’
Grudgingly, they returned her smile and hugs, but it was plain to see by their wary glances and warning glares at Derek that they were still not at all pleased by this arrangement. She shared a weary glance with her brother who was now leaning casually against the truck waiting for this newest fire to be put out. It was obvious that she had a serious amount of explaining and, soon to be, grovelling to do when their friends learned just what all had been happening behind their backs. As bad as Farren’s reaction had been, Kieran and Niamh’s might actually be worse – Farren didn’t know how to turn his blue eyes into weapons of guilt and look like a hurt puppy dog.
Speaking of puppy dog eyes…, Elspeth thought, a devious plan hatching in her brain.
Remembering a beautiful and far too clever for his – or anyone else’s – own good husky that they’d once owned who could get practically anything he wished with a single, mournful glance that seemed to reach into your very soul and hold it ransom until you caved to his, mostly, silent demands – heaven help you if he started whimpering too, but Elspeth didn’t think that that particular tactic would prove nearly as effective for a human fully capable of mashing words together into a, usually, coherent sentence and was undeniably a special method of extortion solely gifted upon animal kind – Elspeth widened her eyes in silent pleading at Farren, emptying herself into that single look in the hope it might prove even remotely as effective. She saw fear enter his eyes as he quickly grasped her intent, his head shaking vigorously as he mouthed a voiceless ‘no’ repeatedly. Still, like that merciless husky so incomparable in its aim to part you from whatever delicious morsel that you happened to have that he didn’t and had deemed unfair, Elsepth kept it up – smiling ever so innocently, a smile that turned into an outright grin of triumph when his shoulders sagged and she knew that she’d won.
A deep chuckle rumbled beside her before she felt Derek’s grin against her ear, the graze of his lips making it tingle in more ways than one. “It seems I’m not the only one who knows how to turn on the ‘charm’,” he whispered, his grin widening when he caught the low growl Kieran emitted.
Well, will you look at that, he even sounds like a dog too, Derek’s laughing voice sounded in Elspeth’s mind. A laughter that was cut short by the sudden ‘oof’ he made when her elbow chose that moment to develop an uncontrollable twitch ramming it sharply into his side.
“We’ll meet you there then,” Elspeth chirped, half-dragging Derek away before he got either of them into any more dangerous waters that she didn’t have an explanation for. “You lead the way and we’ll follow.”
“I do know where they live,” Derek murmured into her ear.
“Yes, I know – probably because you were stalking me at the time – but they don’t need to know that.”
“Following, not quite the same thing, and, I don’t know, it might be quite fun,” a dare in his voice.
“No, no it really wouldn’t be,” she said definitively.
He laughed at the shudder in her voice as she shut him down and started leading her towards where his car was parked a little further down the parking lot.
“By the way, Farren, what happened to your own car? You don’t normally drive one of these bucket of bolts,” she heard Kieran ask behind them.
There was a pause before she heard Farren’s carefully worded reply. “I hit a cat.”
The response was a barely intelligible stream of confused splutterings of Gaelic and English as the poor, clueless Irishman struggled to understand how a mouser could inflict much lasting damage to car.
Still in earshot, Elspeth and Derek both struggled to control their laughter when Farren replied.
“It was an exceptionally large cat.”