“You don’t think we’re too late, right?” Pippa asked as Thea parked her car in an open spot.
“He’s probably still working. From what I learned, he likes to stay late.”
“Wow, are you serious?” Her tone sounded incredulous. “Sheesh. I’ve never known someone who willingly stays behind at their job for a couple more hours. I hope he’s getting paid.”
Thea scoffed. “Of course he is, Pippa. He has to be. I sincerely doubt anyone would stay behind to clean an entire school by themselves with no extra pay.”
“Hmm. You have a point.”
The two of them exited the car and made their way towards the administrative building. They planned on having them call up Leroy so that they could talk with him directly. Considering things were still hazy surrounding the circumstances of Rhianna’s death, they hoped to find more answers.
However, they soon realized that they didn’t have to do that. Emerging from a nearby building, Leroy and Shawn walked in tandem towards the administrative building.
As they spoke, Shawn happened to look up and caught sight of Thea and Pippa staring straight at them. He flushed, nudging Leroy in the side to alert him of their appearance. While Shawn looked embarrassed, the scowl on Leroy’s face indicated that he felt irritated by their sudden presence.
Remembering the last time she spoke with Leroy, and how her attempt at light conversation was struck down by his cold words, Thea knew she couldn’t beat around the bush. Pippa followed after her as she met Shawn and Leroy halfway.
“Are you sure you didn’t hold anything against Rhianna for what happened between the two of you?” Thea asked, disregarding the astonished look on his face. “She got you in trouble with the school. Unintentionally, of course, but it still happened. She put your job and your reputation at risk, and you didn’t retaliate against her?”
Leroy was taken aback by her abrupt statement. Thea was assertive, which was in stark contrast to how she seemed the last time he saw her. Regardless, the shock soon subsided. Annoyance crept back into his expression, narrowing his eyes and deepening his frown.
“At the end of the day, it was a stupid joke. Nothing more, nothing less,” Leroy responded. “Kids make dumb mistakes all the time. Now, I still don’t like the girl all that much, but I don’t blame her for what the school did. She had no part in that. I don’t have anything to hold against her.”
His explanation sounded reasonable enough in Thea’s eyes. Her gaze soon flickered towards Shawn, who looked eager to slip away as inconspicuous as he could. Neither Thea or Pippa were going to allow that to happen. They still had questions they wanted to ask and they knew that Shawn would have some of the answers.
“What are you doing here, Shawn?” she prompted, tilting her head at him. “Have you heard about the mural they’re doing for Rhianna?”
Pippa crossed her arms over her chest. “I think the whole town has heard about that.”
“I-I have, yes,” he replied softly, swallowing thickly. “Y-You know, I should really get going–”
“You haven’t even answered her question yet,” Pippa said, stepping forward to block his path. “What are you doing here?”
“I...” he paused briefly, glancing at Leroy. Eventually, he gave up on trying to hide his motives. “I was asking Leroy if the photography club had any candid shots of Rhianna. I wanted to print them out and give them to Kim. You know... as a peace offering, I guess.”
Pippa raised her brow, as did Thea. Their expressions were filled with doubt as they continued to stare at the kid whose eyes were glued to his shoes.
“But why would you do that? Everyone keeps talking about how you had a beef with Rhianna and that you didn’t like her,” Pippa pointed out. “And now you’re trying to make amends with her best friend? That doesn’t make much sense.”
“It’s true that I didn’t like cheaters,” he mumbled out, scratching the side of his neck sheepishly. “That doesn’t seem to matter much anymore when the person is dead, don’t you think?”
Thea and Pippa were still unconvinced, evident by the way they crossed their arms indignantly at his answer. Shawn sighed.
“All I wanted to do was make sure that Rhianna was playing fairly, that’s all. I never wanted to see anything bad happen to her,” Shawn said. He clenched his jaw. “I don’t care what you people think. I’m leaving.”
Pippa didn’t try to stop him that time. He passed them by without a word, and while Thea wanted to ask about his alibi the day Rhianna was killed, she decided to ask Leroy for his. It was better than nothing.
“If the police want my alibi, they can talk to the school about that. They must have caught me on the security cameras throughout the evening. I was here cleaning when that girl ended up dead. It couldn’t have been me.”
Without questioning him further, Thea thanked him for his time. Leroy responded with a grunt and a nod, before turning around and returning to work. She and Pippa were somber, still unsure where this investigation was leading them. Figuring out who killed Rhianna was proving to be more difficult than they thought.
“THANKS FOR THE RIDE, Thea,” Pippa said, unbuckling her seat belt “I’ll text you later, okay? Maybe we can get some coffee or dinner together.”
“Of course,” Thea agreed, watching as her friend gathered her belongings. “Oh, and Pippa? Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“What do you think about Jesse?”
Pippa stilled. The grip on her purse tightened as her knuckles turned white. “W-Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” Thea said, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. “I’ve seen the way you act around him, you know. And if you want some advice, I think you should just go for it. Make a move and see where it goes. You’ll be thanking me for it later.”
She swallowed the knot in her throat, unwilling to look at Thea in the eyes. However, Thea noticed the pink emerging in her cheeks and her ears. She laughed inwardly to herself, twisting the key in the ignition once more.
“You should definitely consider it, Pippa.” Thea called out.
Pippa said nothing as she slammed the car door. She then hurried inside A Novel Idea with her heart thumping loudly in her chest.
Chapter 22
Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Blaine realized that he was back at square one. After scouring Rhianna’s phone for any clues about who her murderer could be, he was stuck with nothing. Hours devoted to skimming her text messages, emails, and calls and his efforts proved futile.
To say that he was frustrated would be an understatement, but at the very least, he was glad he could stop reading through the girl’s texts. Blaine was amazed how one person could text so much in one day, much less in one month. He was pretty sure that there were miles worth of texts within Rhianna’s phone. He was even more astonished by the fact that he managed to read through it all.
There were a few consistent themes that kept popping up in her texts. She was a sociable girl, but she was also caught up in her fair share of drama. Petty fights were prevalent, as well as gossip and rumor sharing between her various friend groups. Rhianna’s camera roll was filled with text screenshots, as well as selfies and memes that she would send to others.
Not to mention, she had a tendency to sass other people. Blaine’s interest peaked when he discovered her conversations with Gage, especially considering the timeline of his relationship with Nichole at the time. However, he was disappointed to see nothing of substance. Similar to everything else he found, there was nothing to suggest that someone wanted to kill Rhianna.
Yawning, Blaine didn’t even want to glance at another phone screen for the rest of the day. His eyes felt exhausted, but the text notification he received from Thea changed his mind. He would be more than willing to strain his eyesight even more once he saw her name flash up on his screen.
Are you free for lunch? I kinda wanted to talk to you a bit about the case.
“Lunch...?” Blaine mumbled
to himself, checking the time.
He let out an astonished breath as he realized that it was almost one in the afternoon. The last time he checked the clock, it was nine in the morning. Time flies when you’re keeping up with college drama, it seems.
Of course I’m free. Did you have any place in mind where we could meet? I’m down for whatever.
It didn’t take long for Thea’s text bubble to appear. He waited for her response in nervous excitement. He felt like a kid with a schoolyard crush whenever it came to her. However, he didn’t mind it that much.
I was thinking we could meet at Witt’s End Diner. We haven’t stopped by in a while. I’ll see you there, alright?
AS THE TWO OF THEM walked through the door, they were met with Eleanor and Fred’s kind expressions. They were led to their regular table near the back of the diner, hidden away from the rest of the customers.
“So did you find anything in Rhianna’s phone?” Thea asked, taking the seat across from him and opening up the lunch menu.
Blaine shook his head. “Nothing. I looked through a month’s worth of texts and I couldn’t find anything useful to the case. It almost drove me insane.”
“Pippa and I visited the sorority house. I used it as a chance to snoop around and see if I could dig up anything,” Thea explained, which made his eyes widen. “It turns out she used to have a calendar where she would mark a bunch of days on it.”
“Was there a pattern to them?” Blaine asked. “They could have been club meetings or something.”
“They seemed random to me.”
Resting his chin on his hand, Blaine thought back to her phone. “I don’t remember seeing any events saved in her phone calendar or emails. It must have been something she wanted to keep a secret.”
“I also wanted to tell you that I talked to Leroy recently. I think he may have an alibi to clear his innocence in this case, but you’re going to have to see if it checks out. He basically gave us permission to see if his alibi was real, we just have to talk to the school administration first.”
Blaine let out an amused laugh as he flipped through the menu and eyed a bacon sandwich with avocado and toasted bread. “You’ve been busy, haven’t you? You spend so much time helping us in these cases. Why don’t you just join the force outright?”
“Be serious, Blaine.”
“I am.”
“I’d only consider it if and only if you guys needed my help that badly,” she replied, sending him a quick smile. “Otherwise, I can stick with my day job at A Stitch in Time.”
“Anything to help us out in solving this case, the better,” Blaine said, leaning back into his seat. “If you can use your magical avenues to figure this out, be my guest. Our tactics are running dry and the mundane ones haven’t been of much help recently.”
Thea narrowed her eyes in thought. “I’m not sure I have any more tricks up my sleeves that I could use.”
“Aww.” Blaine pouted. “That’s gonna make things more difficult for us.”
“But that’s besides the point,” she reminded him. “You don’t need magic to confirm Shawn and Nichole’s alibis, do you? That can be our starting point. From there, we can really start to narrow down the remaining suspects who had ties to Rhianna.”
“I must say that you’re making some arguments that I can’t dispute,” Blaine said, commending her with a slight nod of his head. “We’ll look into their alibis, I promise.”
“And you need to make sure and see if Leroy was telling the truth as well,” Thea added, closing her menu. She already had an idea of what she wanted to order. “If he was really at the high school on the day Rhianna was killed, that’ll be enough to prove that he isn’t the killer.”
Blaine nodded, waving over a waiter so that the two of them could order their meals. “I’ll request the school security footage when I get back to the station. Let’s talk about something else now, yeah? I’m starving and I’m tired, so the murder case is the last thing I have on my mind right now.”
Chapter 23
Letting out a huff as she dropped the box of supplies onto the counter, Thea wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. She was preparing for a regular afternoon in A Stitch in Time. Since the shelves looked barren, she got to work sorting out her supplies and stocking the displays with new merchandise.
In a way, she used restocking as a way to relieve stress. The quiet ambiance of the store coupled with her light hums as she organized the paint section calmed her. Thea was focused, which meant she was going to get a lot of work done. She was in no mood to procrastinate her tasks.
However, she was soon distracted by the jingle of the shop door opening. Tossing a glance over her shoulder, she realized that it was Professor Potter walking through the entrance. His gaze met hers almost immediately.
“I was hoping I’d be able to talk to you,” he said, making his way over. He ran a hand over his cheek. “That isn’t a good way to greet someone, isn’t it? Let me start over. Hello there, Thea. How are you?”
She smiled. “I’m doing just fine, thank you. I’ve been keeping myself busy around the shop, as you can see.”
“I’ve heard a lot of good things about this place. I already know you’re doing a phenomenal job,” he replied, taking a brief look around. Afterwards, he seemed somewhat embarrassed as he scratched his neck. “And... about our last conversation... I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable or scared you in any way. I guess speaking about what happened about Rhianna got me a bit angry, that’s all.”
“Don’t worry about it, professor,” she reassured him, setting down the final items in their rightful spot on the shelves. “It was completely understandable. At least, to me it was. I think anyone would find it frustrating if someone was murdered and nobody had a clue who did it or why it happened.”
“Yeah...” Professor Potter said quietly as he began to browse the aisles. “Frustrating. That’s a good way to put it.”
Instead of furthering the conversation, Thea watched as the professor began to walk around the shop. With his hands behind his back, he peered at the various displays. Eventually, his attention was caught by the floating Halloween decorations and the lace spiderwebs. He pointed at them.
“Were you the one who did this?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the small pumpkin levitating near the roof of the shop.
Thea raised her chin a little higher. “Yep. That was all me.”
“It’s amazing to see a talented witch at work. I’m impressed,” he commented, continuing his walk through the shop.
After he was done skimming through the aisles, he made his way back to the counter where Thea was waiting to ring him up. She felt somewhat disheartened to see him not want to buy anything, but said nothing all the same. The expression on his face told her that he had something else he wanted to mention and Thea was all ears.
“Do you know about that one kid? The one who really had it out for Rhianna?” Professor Potter asked, leaning on the counter.
“Shawn Morgan?” Thea asked. She narrowed her eyes, wondering why the professor would mention him during a time like this. “What’s going on with him?”
Professor Potter leaned in a bit closer, making sure his voice was low. “I’m sure you’ve heard about all the rumors regarding that boy. It was a bit concerning to see how adamant he was with those accusations he made. Nobody ever believed him, and there’s good reason for that.”
“No evidence, huh?”
“Precisely. That, and people just figured that he had nothing better to do with his time other than annoy other members of the student body,” Professor Potter remarked, adjusting his watch. “If you’re still looking into the possibilities of who could have killed Rhianna, I would start with him.”
“I will. I promise,” she said, accompanied by a nod. “I’m not leaving any stone unturned. If Shawn was truly involved with Rhianna’s murder, we’re going to figure that out sooner rather than later.”
“Good,” he replied. “I wish y
ou good luck on this investigation, then. The faster we find the individual who killed Rhianna, the better.”
Thea agreed. He took his leave, and while she was about to resume her tasks around the shop, she was interjected by an individual clearing their throat near the back of the store. Turning around, she noticed Jesse leaning on the door frame that led to the backroom of the shop. There was a half-eaten apple in his hand.
“That was weird,” he said, motioning towards the departed professor. “He came all this way to tell you to keep an eye out for Shawn Morgan? That’s some serious odd behavior.”
Thea waved him off, already wanting to change the topic of the conversation. However, deep inside, she knew that he had a point.
“Has Pippa talked to you or texted you recently?” Thea asked, curiously tilting her head to the side.
Jesse frowned, sending her a look. “No. Why do you ask? Did I do something wrong?”
Making a gesture with her hand to signify that he was on the edge of reaching Pippa’s bad side, Jesse sighed deeply.
“Oh, c’mon. I swear I haven’t been up to anything bad. She doesn’t think that I was flirting with Kim, right? I would never.” he exclaimed, dumping his apple core into the trash can. “I was super awkward with her, anyway. I don’t even know how to carry a conversation with that girl.”
“Why are you so frazzled?” Sybil piped up, snaking her way through Jesse’s feet and coiling her tail around his leg. “Have you been trying to make Pippa jealous?”
“W-What? No. Never.” Jesse shook his head fervently. “Why would I destroy my chances with her before I even got a shot to start a relationship? That’s just ridiculous. Even I wouldn’t be capable of messing up that badly.”
Thea and Sybil both laughed at his reaction. His cheeks were turning a slight pink.
“Don’t worry about it, Jesse. You’re not in any trouble,” Thea reassured. However, she did point a finger at him. “Just make sure you don’t joke around too obviously with Kim while Pippa is around from here on out. That’s just my two cents.”
Spooky Magic (Tabby Kitten Mystery Book 4) Page 8
