by Willow Mason
All the letter detailed was what Agnes had already told me. If you don’t pay the funds I ask for, I’ll reveal details of your husband’s activities that will bring shame to his name.
“It sounds so fussy and old-fashioned,” I said, bringing up a plagiarism checker on the computer and typing in the note. “This writing reminds me more of a movie from the forties or fifties than something written today.”
“Maybe he’s not kept up-to-date with advances in criminal language,” Beezley said with an amused bark. “Once we catch him, you can fill him in.”
“Very funny. How do you know it’s a he?”
“Experience and statistics. Why? Is there something steering you in another direction?”
I shook my head, tapping a finger on the table. “Agnes said the letter just turned up in her mailbox, no stamp and no address.”
“That sounds about right. No blackmailer worth his salt is going to send a demand through the mail.”
“We should install cameras to record the movement.”
Beezley inclined his head. “Good call. Your instincts for this game are improving. There’s a bloke out at the camping ground who installs electronics and doesn’t mind working on the weekend.”
“Friend of yours?”
“Old collar but it amounts to the same. Just tell him Beezley sent you and he’ll come on board.”
But the plan was soon thwarted when I called through to Agnes to explain what we wanted to do.
“I can’t have that!” she scolded me. “It’s hard enough to keep the neighbours out of my business without mounting cameras outside the house. I’d never hear the end of it.”
“We’ll take them down the moment your blackmailer’s caught.”
“There’ll be nothing to take down because I won’t have it. I’ve seen on the news what those rascals get up to when they put electronics in a single lady’s home. They set them up to record the occupant rather than the street.”
Agnes paused for a breath and when she spoke again, her voice was more conciliatory. “Besides, what are the chances a man breaking the law will walk up to my house with his face hanging out? None.”
After having watched countless true crime photos where the perpetrator wore a baseball cap to fool the CCTV, I conceded the woman had a point.
“What else do you want to try?” Beezley asked me as I hung up the phone, dejected. “Have another look at the letter.”
I knew that voice. He was testing me. I picked up the photocopy feeling the old exam sweat I’d suffered throughout high school forming on my brow. The penalties for failing this would be harsher than the shortest appointment ever in the career counsellor’s office. Instead, I’d have to watch Beezley’s eyes change from hopeful to disappointed.
Biting the edge of my lip, I read through the words, again and again, waiting for some brilliant spark to gel into a new idea. By the fifth time through, my hopes were dissipating. By the tenth, I felt fed up with the whole day.
I tossed the letter onto the table and drummed my fingers on it. Wait, a moment.
“The logo,” I said, pointing to the crest at the top of the page. It had suffered the loss of quality from being copied but was still legible. “This stationery is from the Grand Valley Lodge out by the ski field.”
“Fancy a trip?” Beezley asked in a bright voice. “I hear it’s lovely at this time of year.”
Chapter Six
Riverhead is a tourist town for one season of the year. Winter. When the mountains surrounding our small village grow a fresh dusting of snow, winter sports folk turn up in droves, clutching their overpriced passes.
It made for a bumper season for anyone with a ski field to their name and did nicely for those in peripheral occupations—chiefly selling products and services to the snow bunnies at fifty percent mark-up on the rest of the year.
Now, in summer, all those chateau rentals sat empty. There’d be the occasional couple through, looking for somewhere quiet and, lord knows, we could provide that. Otherwise, nothing much.
Some operators knew better than to even try, spreading out sheets to protect the chattels and moving on until the next year, leaving behind their furniture ghosts.
The Grand Valley Lodge belonged to the latter camp. It had prime placement at the base of the Westerville ski run and was booked a year in advance. The guests who stayed this winter would pay a deposit for a room the following year.
If anybody missed out, they’d suffer the penalty of staying a few hundred metres further down the road. Not far, unless you were suited up with ski boots to contend with.
I hated the cold. In winter, if the weather gave even the slightest sign of a frost, I’d crank the heat pump up to thirty and hunker down in three layers of woollen clothing, a hot chocolate in my hand. Even the short walk from my old house to my old job at the library was a trial.
So, it should be no surprise I’d never examined the lodge up close. Leaving Beezley off the leash to wander, I checked out the main entrance and exit doors, unsurprised to find them firmly closed.
“Any friends you know down at the camping ground with a penchant for entering things they shouldn’t?” I asked the bulldog when we circled around to meet each other again. “Maybe the same guy who does the electronics?”
“Follow me,” Beezley ordered, and I tagged along behind. “There’s a window open.”
“Which one?” I stared at the wall of windows with twinkling panes staring back at me.
Beezley nosed a rock towards me from the edge of the garden. “Whichever one you like.”
“Somebody’s forgotten their police training,” I said, kicking it back. “You might get away with that but if this place has alarms, it’ll take all of ten minutes for me to be in the back of a police cruiser, visiting the station.”
“Well, how about you magic one open then?”
I thought of the dirt flying into the air when I’d commanded it to fill in a grave and remembered the anger on Glynda’s face underneath the mud pie in her hair. “I’m not sure it’s appropriate.”
“You said you’d only use your powers for good. Isn’t this good?”
He glanced at me with such an earnest expression, I burst out laughing. “Since when is breaking into a hotel a good thing? I think you have it confused with expedient.”
“A crowbar might work,” he mused, nose pressed up against the glass of a large bay window. “If you could slide it—”
“I’m not committing a crime when we don’t even know someone’s in there.” I stood back, momentarily disconcerted by my position on the high moral ground. It wasn’t a spot I was used to.
“We won’t know if they’re in there or not until we can gain access.”
“It was a notepad. For all we know, the blackmailer picked it up when he stayed here in the winter. Or worked here. Or dropped by to meet some friends.”
As Beezley raced up and down outside the hotel windows, I thought he might just be in need of exercise. Being cooped up all day inside was fine for a witch, this witch at least, but a dog was a different matter.
It was about time I got some advice on caring for French Bulldogs and ignored the fact DS Adam Beezley used to be a human. Living in the past wouldn’t do either of us any good.
“What’s that?” I ducked down as a motorcycle engine roared towards us. A large circle of bushes served as a hiding space while I frantically motioned for Beezley to stop cavorting.
The sound reached me a long time before the vehicle pulled into view. Thanks to the bowl shape of the mountains, sounds in Riverhead were often amplified and diminished according to which side of the range you were on.
What I’d thought must be a grunty road machine transformed into a nifty-fifty. I almost laughed, then slapped a hand across my mouth. This could be a dangerous criminal despite his choice of vehicle.
“Do you want me to rush him?” Beezley asked, hopping forward with eagerness like a teenager flooded with testosterone. “I can snap at his ankles whi
le you run away.”
“How about we wait and see what he does?”
Although I kept my eyes fixed on the young man who’d just arrived, part of my mind examined the dog’s recent behaviour. It had never occurred to me to question how old the bulldog was in dog years. He seemed fully grown but so did a teenager. If he was going through dog puberty, it might explain some things.
“Oh, no.”
The man wheeled his bike into the undergrowth, ending up a foot away from me. I stood up, barely aware of my plan before opening my mouth.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a shocked voice. “My dog is trying to relieve himself. It’s not a spectator sport.”
I cast a quick glance at Beezley who followed my lead, straining and grunting in the foliage.
“What? No! I’m not.” The man backed up a few steps, flinging his gaze in all directions. “I was just—”
“Just what? You’re hiding in the bushes. Do you believe I don’t know what that means? I’m a woman of the world.”
“Eh?” The poor boy seemed entirely out of his element, his brow furrowing with worry.
“You’re one of those perverts and it’s no use pretending otherwise. You mightn’t be wearing a raincoat, but I can tell a flasher when I see one.” I surged forward, crashing my way out of the bushes and making more noise than the lad had with his arrival. “Don’t you come near me”—I held up a finger in warning—“else I’m calling the police.”
At the threat, the boy turned pale, channelling his inner emo. “I haven’t done anything.”
“You’re creeping around in the bushes here and that’s enough. It’s not like you’re a guest. The lodge is closed for the season.”
“I only…”
“What’s your name?” I pulled a notebook out of my pocket and licked the tip of my pencil. It wouldn’t help me write but it felt good to do it. Professional. “Come on,” I said, clicking my fingers when he hesitated. “The only way you’re getting out of this without a visit to the po-po is by telling me who you are.”
It took all of two seconds for him to realise another way out was to cut and run. He jogged alongside his bike to the edge of the property, then jumped on, kicking the engine back into life.
“Great. Now he knows what we look like and he’s scared we’ll call the police.”
I turned to Beezley with one raised eyebrow, disliking his tone. Of the two of us, he should definitely be the more grown-up. “It doesn’t matter if he can pick you out of a line-up and he should be scared of us. We’re the ones who’re going to stop his little game.”
When the dog continued to look unimpressed, I gave a sniff and moved back to the side of the hotel. “And we also know he’s staying around here somewhere. If a kid like him can find a way into this place, so can we.”
“Kid,” Beezley scoffed. “From what I can see he’s the same age as you.”
“Except I’m old enough to know blackmail won’t get you anywhere. Here we go.” I clapped my hands in delight. A pair of wooden doors were set into a concrete square in the ground. They were fixed with a padlock but when I pulled at the chain, it fell apart, the lock missing a section thanks to bolt-cutters.
“Perhaps I should go first—” Beezley started to say, but I jumped down the ladder rungs into the basement. A narrow window ran the length of the room, letting in enough light to see walls and floors but no details.
“Are you coming?” I called up, receiving an armful of dog a second later. Beezley’s eyes must have been much keener than mine as he trotted around the room, nosing open a connecting door I hadn’t even seen.
A pile of bedding in a corner told me the man we’d seen was living here. Judging from the smell and old food containers stacked near a sheet-covered table, he’d been staying for a couple of weeks.
I kicked at the edge of a polystyrene box with the toe of my shoe and grimaced. “It doesn’t look like the criminal headquarters of a master villain.”
Beezley barked out a laugh, turning away.
I just had time to register a footstep behind me when everything went dark. A bag had been dropped over my head.
Someone grabbed my arms, pinning them behind my back.
A man’s voice yelled into my ear, “Keep still or you’ll regret it!”
Chapter Seven
My mind spun in panicked chaos. Cruel arms jerked me forward. Beezley yelped in pain.
A bolt of black magic shot out of me before I could think. Even in the darkness of my head covering, I saw the crimson glow.
The world shattered with sound.
My arms came free, and the man shoved me away, kicking at my ankles to trip me. My wrist twisted and made a crunching sound as I broke my fall. I tugged at the bag, sobbing when I couldn’t get it off. A knot secured it at my throat and my fingers fumbled, a nail peeling back as I struggled to untie the cord.
An object crashed into the floor near me, the vibration running through my body. Glass hit the ground, tinkling as it broke into shards.
Finally, I had the bag off. The world around me was upside down, not making sense. A door slammed on the other side of the room. The man had gone.
“Beezley?”
I spun in a circle, unable to see him. A chandelier crashed to the floor near me, and overhead beams creaked.
“Where are you, boy?”
“Don’t call me boy!”
The voice came from an overturned table and I hurried over, pulling Beezley free of the mess.
“We need to get out of here!” I picked him up, ignoring the flare of pain from my wrist. “Where’s the exit?”
“Go back where we came from,” he yelled back at me as part of the roof collapsed, sending a cloud of dust and plaster into the air.
I’d become so turned around it took another few seconds before I saw the pile of bedding and empty food wrappers. With my sense of direction restored, I ran for the doorway, escaping through just as another chandelier crashed to the floor in a cacophony of broken crystal and glass.
I pushed Beezley ahead of me, cursing my injured arm as I tried to pull my full weight up and out. With a strangled gasp, I clenched my jaw and tried again, fear overcoming the pain until I sprawled onto the grass.
“What’s going on?” Glynda shouted, arriving on her broom and dispatching it into a puff of smoke. “Was it an explosion?”
She put her shoulder under my arm and pulled me away from the danger. Just as we reached the road, the lodge collapsed behind us, splintered beams and broken bricks tumbling just short of where we fell.
“I don’t know.” I reached for Beezley and hugged him to my chest. The scene in front of me was terrifying. To think we’d just been inside there, unaware of any danger, made me reel. All four stories now had street-level views.
“We need to get out of here,” Glynda said, cloaking us with an invisibility spell as the first emergency vehicle pulled up on the scene. “And get those cuts taken care of.”
I followed her gaze and saw splinters of glass and wood sticking out of my arms and shoulders. My back must have taken much of the initial blast and I understood the trickle of sweat between my shoulder blades was more likely blood.
I gladly handed my car keys over to let Glynda do the driving.
At her house, a bowl of warm water soon turned rosy as she wiped down my shredded skin. “Did somebody set off a bomb?” she asked, frowning in concentration as she plucked a nasty shard of glass from my elbow.
“I didn’t see who it was,” I said in a mumble. My ears rang from the commotion, an annoying tone layered over every other sound. “A man stuck a bag over my head, then the world exploded.”
“What about you?” Glynda said to Beezley. “Or was your head in a bag, too?”
“The guy kicked me, then the world filled with crimson and I flew across the room. If it hadn’t been for the table tipping over, I would’ve catapulted out of the window.”
“Crimson?” My coven leader tilted her head and sighed. “The s
ame colour as your black magic?”
“About time we changed the name, don’t you think?” My mild joke didn’t raise a smile. “I was scared. It just came out.”
“And you tore down a hotel.” Glynda pushed back from the table, folding her arms as she stared at me. “I thought your trick at the graveyard was bad enough, but this is another level of trouble altogether.”
“I didn’t know it could do that.”
“That’s the whole point. We don’t know what your powers can do.”
Beezley glanced from one of us to the other. “What graveyard?”
“I told you there was a zombie at the bank.”
Glynda snorted. “I thought I’d hired you to look into it.”
“You did.” I gave Beezley a stern glance. “It’s our top priority.”
“Yet completely unconnected with a ski lodge closed for the season.”
“It’s our number two priority,” I amended, my eyes skittering away from the coven leader. “We’ve got another paying job. I did find a voodoo doll near the gravesite that appears to have been made by the caretaker there.”
With a humph, Glynda left the room to empty the bowl of water into the bathroom sink and returned with a packet of band-aids, which she tossed to me. “Since you’re a danger to yourself and the coven until you get this magic power under control, I suggest you rearrange your priorities. I can find a teacher to help you deal with your crimson magic, but I need the other business sorted in return.”
“The man’s back in his grave, isn’t he?” Beezley stepped forward, thrusting out his chest. “We’ve still got a blackmailer on the loose.”
“Shh,” Glynda said, turning on the television. “It’s time for the news.”
The devastation of the lodge was the top story, hogging the limelight from other such riveting local affairs as the annual shearing contest and an overturned kayak on a rafting trip.
Kris Lewisham, the newsreader, had a glow of satisfaction as she stood in front of the wreckage. Despite the seriousness of the incident—or because of it—her joy at reporting shone from the screen.
