“I haven’t,” Gwyn said slowly, looking over at Vivi.
Clearing her throat, Vivi stepped forward and, with supreme effort, kept from fidgeting with her hands. Gwyn always said that was her tell.
“I bumped into him last night?” she offered. “He was on his way up to the house.”
With a frustrated sound, Jane looked down at her phone. “Well, he’s due to give the Founder’s Day speech in twenty minutes, and he has yet to check in at the welcome booth.”
Vivi relaxed a little. Okay, if that was the only cause for concern, maybe Rhys wasn’t actually lying dead in a ditch on the side of the mountain. The words “welcome booth” were probably up there with “fiscal responsibility” and “ethical monogamy” in terms of phrases he’d shy away from.
“I haven’t been able to reach him on his phone, but maybe I’m fucking up the whole international number thing, I don’t know,” Jane went on. “In any case, Founder’s Day can’t start until we do all the speeches, and he’s on the program.”
She looked up at Gwyn, beseeching. “He’s on. The. Program.”
“He’ll turn up,” Vivi said, laying a reassuring hand on Jane’s arm only to step back slightly because, good god, the woman was actually vibrating; how much coffee had she consumed this morning?
“Vivi could go look for him,” Gwyn said, and Vivi wondered if some witches had the power to kill with their minds because that sure would be handy right about now.
“I mean,” Gwyn went on, barely suppressing her grin, “you’ve never met him, Jane, and he and Vivi are old friends.”
“Really?” Jane turned to Vivi and for the barest second, her fingers stopped typing. “Why didn’t you say?”
Vivi sniffed and waved a hand. “Oh, it was ages ago, and we haven’t kept in touch. And like I said, I’m sure he’ll be here. Tradition is really important to the Penhallows, and he came all this way just to do this.”
And he’s definitely not dead, I did not actually leave him to die or get eaten by wolves, there aren’t any wolves left in Georgia, I’m pretty sure. Although there are bears . . .
“You know what, I will just go mill around, see if I can find him, okay?”
As Vivi hustled out of the shop, she heard Gwyn say to Jane, “See? Problem solved!”
Vivi definitely hoped so.
The main street through Graves Glen’s downtown was already starting to fill up even though the sky was gray and the temperature had dropped overnight, going from pleasantly autumnal to downright crisp.
As Vivi looked up, clouds moved quickly overhead, and she hoped the whole thing wasn’t about to be rained out. They’d had hot, humid Founder’s Days before, but usually, the magic thrumming under everything kept bad weather at bay.
A gust of wind blew down the street, rattling the plastic pumpkins hanging from the old-fashioned gas lamps, and Vivi wished she’d grabbed her coat from the back room of Something Wicked.
Hopefully she’d spot Rhys pretty quickly, get him over to the welcome booth, and then she could spend the rest of the day helping Elaine and Gwyn out at the shop. She’d be damned if she was going to stand in the crowd and watch Rhys make a big speech about the history of the town, his family honor or whatever it was he was actually planning to say.
As she passed a family all dressed up like witches, complete with the pointy hats, Vivi smiled. She loved Founder’s Day, even when it involved her ex. It kicked off the whole Halloween season, and the town filled up with people really committed to having fun. According to Aunt Elaine, in the past, Founder’s Day had been a more somber affair, a recognition of the sacrifices the Penhallows had made in founding this little village, tucked away in the mountains. Gryffud Penhallow had died his first year here, after all, and there was a legend that his ghost still roamed the hills above the town.