With an idea popping into her mind, Thea decided to try it out. She wanted to see just how charmed the phone really was. When she attempted to wave a shield into existence, she watched in astonishment as the magic seemed to disappear before her eyes. Every spell she tried to complete with the phone in the vicinity, it was prevented completely.
Granny let out an impressed hum. “What can’t phones do these days, huh?”
“I’ll say,” Sybil added. “That thing is pretty cool, Thea. You should do the same with your phone.”
As she continued to stare at the phone, her eyes lit up at a revelation. She clicked open the device and began scrolling through. Specifically, she was looking through Rhianna’s phone history.
Just as she expected, there was a noticeable gap in call activity within the hours of her death. With a look of determination on Thea’s face, she scrambled to her feet and dialed Blaine’s number. It didn’t take long for him to answer.
“Please tell me you can pull up Rhianna’s phone records again,” she said, continuing to scroll through the device. “I just realized that there are some gaps in the activity that must have been deleted, but they should still be on record with her service provider. Can you pull that up?”
“I’m on it right now,” Blaine replied, typing away at his keyboard to retrieve the records. After a few moments of waiting, he let out a deep exhale. “Sheesh. I can’t believe I didn’t think about double-checking the call history. There was so much to look at, I didn’t think anything would be missing.”
“Who did she call on the day she was murdered?”
“Professor Potter.”
Thea let out a dry laugh in response. It all made perfect sense. Who else in close proximity to Rhianna would have known to charm her phone?
“Since you were able to figure this out, do you want to take the lead on it?” Blaine suggested.
Thea nodded, already on her way out the door. “I’ll handle it.”
Chapter 27
Thea walked across the college campus with Rhianna’s phone in her hand. She was filled with feelings of both determination and apprehension.
She walked into the engineering building for her meeting. She walked up the stairs to the office she was looking for. She knocked on the door and Professor Potter answered. He looked surprised to see her.
“Ah, Miss Beal, come in, please,” he said, stepping aside to let her in.
Thea walked into the office. Some of the things in the office were in boxes.
“You’ll have to excuse the mess,” he said. “I’ve been packing in preparation for my sabbatical.”
“The mess is no trouble at all,” Thea said.
“So, what did you want to speak to me about?” he asked. “I’m afraid I’ve told you all I know already about Selena and Shawn.”
“I’m not here to talk about them,” Thea said. “I’ve actually been able to find out a few more things about my mom.”
“Oh, how wonderful. I’m glad you’re finding the information you’ve been seeking.”
“Yes. It’s been good. And Shawn’s alibi checked out. So did Nichole’s and Leroy Bird’s.”
“How lucky for them,” he said. “So the subject of this meeting isn’t about the investigation? What is it about? I’m afraid I don’t have too much time to sit and chat.”
Thea held up Rhianna’s phone in front of Professor Potter. He immediately went stone-faced. Thea waited for him to say something, but he stayed silent.
“You know, it’s funny. I actually discovered this by accident,” she began. “But it’s an impressive spell. Being able to stop the aura of something magical like that is a powerful skill. If I may, Rhianna probably found out you were a warlock and came to you for help.”
Professor Potter nodded and sighed. “Rhianna was a special girl. She didn’t like getting all of this attention just because she was a siren. She wanted praise and attention to be earned. She was really truly remarkable.”
Thea nodded. “She sounds like it.”
“Others would have gladly taken the opportunity to get everything their heart desired, but not Rhianna. She knew she was different and not like the other students. I tried my best to be sympathetic.”
Thea nodded along.
“Issues with mundanes can get very complex. I’m sure you understand that,” Potter said.
“Of course. What magic user doesn’t?”
“She and I worked hard together to create a solution to her problem. We made a charm. One that was small that she could easily carry around.”
Thea thought back to the dates marked off on Rhianna’s calendar. She knew that if she checked, they would correspond perfectly to her meetings with Potter.
“That sounds like a stroke of ingenuity,” Thea said, trying to get Potter to keep talking. “I’m sure she was grateful.”
Potter grinned. It was an unsettling smile. “Oh yes. She was very grateful...”
He trailed off. “But...?” Thea asked, prompting him to continue.
“But, she didn’t understand...”
“What didn’t she understand?” Thea asked.
“Well, we still had to meet,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We had just finished the charm. It worked and she was happy with it, but then she argued with me about stopping the meetings.”
“Was this at the homecoming parade?” Thea asked.
Potter gave her a look. Thea had trouble reading his expression, but she felt fairly confident that it did.
“We talked and talked and talked,” he said with a sigh. “She was a smart girl, but she couldn’t see why we needed to continue our meetings.”
“What were you working on if not the charm?” Thea asked.
Potter gave her a slightly crazed look. “It wasn’t about a project or charm or anything like that,” he insisted. “I knew her like no one else could. I saw her—who she really was—beyond the magic. I knew her better than anyone ever had or could.”
Thea stayed quiet, hoping he would continue. He was right where she wanted him.
“I couldn’t understand why she was fighting it. She told me she was grateful for what I had done, but if she was really grateful, she would have listened to me.”
Potter stared off into the back of the room. “We argued that day. She was thanking me, but I was so angry that she wanted to stop our meetings. I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. Then I pushed her and...”
Potter trailed off again, breathing heavily. His eyes were wide and sweat began to form on his brow.
“And then she fell,” Thea said, continuing his lost train of thought. She had done it. Potter confessed to the murder.
“Yes. And then she fell,” he admitted. “I couldn’t let her go anywhere.” He turned to Thea. “Just like I can’t let you go anywhere.”
Thea let out a gasp. She took a step backwards towards the door. She was trying to think of the quickest escape route. In the tiny office, she could only go back the way she came.
She was about to run, wondering if her magic would be strong enough to hold off Potter’s potentially more powerful magic when he pulled something that looked like a garage door opener out of his pocket.
With his eyes still wide, he held up the controller, and clicked it.
Thea’s whole body froze in place. Her wide eyes stared back at his.
Now that she could no longer move, she was trapped in the room, and completely at the killer’s mercy. She didn’t think he’d try anything here at the college. She was wrong.
Chapter 28
No matter how much Thea tried to struggle with Professor Potter’s bonds, she couldn’t move. Only Thea’s eyes were free to move about, and she scanned the room for any possibility of escape.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you,” said Potter emphatically. “I never wanted to hurt anyone, let alone kill Rhianna. I loved her, for God’s sake.”
Thea couldn’t reply; her mouth was as frozen as the rest of h
er body. She thought, though, about how Rhianna must have felt about this lecherous old man and his creepy crush.
With that in mind, Thea ignored Potter’s pleas for forgiveness. He knew what he was doing from the moment he began any sort of relationship with Rhianna. He was the teacher and she was the student; it didn’t take a genius to recognize the power disparity there.
“I’m just going to hide you for awhile,” said Potter, “until I’m very, very far away. But I’ll make sure you stay completely safe. I promise.” The professor set the device he’d used on Thea on his desk and began nervously wringing his hands. He had a faraway look in his eyes as if lost in thought.
Thea wondered what he was thinking about. Could he be thinking of his getaway or how he could possibly hide her? Even if Potter was a powerful magic user, Thea had a hard time imagining what he might have in mind.
Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to worry about Potter’s plans for long. Soon, Thea felt a subtle warmth spread from the tips of her fingers and toes to her core. Slowly, she began wiggling her fingers.
“The phone,” she thought to herself. It was absorbing Professor Potter’s magic, and he was none the wiser. Soon, her entire body was completely free.
Thea chose to hold her pose for just a bit longer, though. If she could hold out until the professor was properly distracted, she could easily get the jump on him with a spell of her own.
Potter snapped back to attention and walked around to the front of his desk, presumably to begin working at finding a suitable hiding place for his prisoner. Kendrick Potter was obviously an intelligent man, but, like many of his intellectual ilk, he was far from the organized type.
The boxes Potter had been packing for his sabbatical sat haphazardly around the desk without any semblance of structure. As the professor turned to round the desk’s corner, he hooked his foot on a box and stumbled forward. He’d only avoided a full-on fall by quickly catching himself on the desk.
Though Potter hadn’t fallen flat on his face, his stumble was as good a distraction as any. Thea leaped from her faux-bonds, tossing Rhianna’s phone and the attached anti-magic charm as far across the room as she could manage. It hit the wall and landed with a dull “thud” on the carpet below.
Before Professor Potter could move, Thea waved a hand and had him in a binding spell of her own. He had been trying to reach for his magical device but was stopped, frozen in time. He was bent forward, his right hand perpetually grasping the air between it and the device.
Thea breathed a sigh of relief knowing that she now had the upper hand. She closely inspected the professor until she was satisfied the spell had worked properly: Potter couldn’t move, but his insides were fully functional. Teigen’s methods may have seemed harsh to Thea, but she couldn’t help but feel grateful that her Aunt had insisted on perfection.
The office door swung open, revealing Blaine. He did a visual once-over of Potter before turning to Thea and asking, “Did you get it?”
“Yup,” she replied, pulling her own phone from her front pocket and holding it out for Blaine to take. “It’s all on here, the entire conversation.”
“Good, that should be more than enough for a conviction.” Blaine took the phone and pocketed it. He walked toward the professor and started cuffing him. “Looks like that sabbatical is going last a lot longer than you planned for, Professor.”
“Before you leave,” said Thea, “you should take that anti-magic charm with you. Wouldn’t want Kendrick here to get any smart ideas.”
“Good point,” Blaine replied. “Where is it?”
“Over there.” Thea pointed in the direction she’d thrown the phone. “I’d go get it for you, but I wouldn’t want it to weaken my spell.”
Blaine eyed Kendrick to ensure he was still incapable of motion. Satisfied, he walked to the spot Thea had motioned toward and found the phone on the ground. The screen had a spiderweb of cracks on it, but otherwise, it still seemed to work just fine.
Blaine returned to arresting the professor, making sure to drop the anti-magic charm in Potter’s front pocket. Once Blaine was certain the handcuffs were on, Thea dropped the spell and Potter could move once more.
“No,” he started to say, “no no no, you can’t do this. You can’t arrest me. I loved her; I didn’t mean to do anything. You’ve got to believe me.”
Blaine ignored the professor’s pleas for mercy and began leading him out the door. As the two walked away, Thea heard Blaine calmly reading Potter his rights as the professor kept babbling about his unrequited love.
Chapter 29
By the time Blaine and Kendrick Potter got to the police cruiser, the latter’s enthusiastic raving had mellowed into a dull murmur. Blaine put one hand on the killer’s head and gently pushed him into the back seat before shutting the door and getting in himself.
Even Potter’s murmuring seemed to die down as the pair approached the police station, but Blaine thought he might just have gotten better at tuning out the crazy. When Blaine occasionally checked his perp in the rear view mirror, he saw Potter’s mouth still moving and a far-off stare in his eyes.
“Alright, time to go,” said Blaine when he parked in front of the station. Potter had finally stopped making any noise, but the faraway look remained. They went inside and Blaine passed Potter along to another officer to put him into holding, but not without first removing Rhianna’s phone and the anti-magic charm from his pocket.
Handing the charm to the processing officer, Blaine said “Here, make sure this stays close to him.”
The officer gave Blaine a confused look and asked, “Why, what is it?”
“No questions. Just do it, rookie,” Blaine responded before walking away. The officer shrugged her shoulders and began her work, making sure to keep the charm near Potter at all times. The last thing she wanted was to draw the ire of a senior officer.
With both Thea’s and Kendrick’s phones in hand, Blaine went to his desk to begin the long and arduous paperwork process. He began by hooking Thea’s phone up to his laptop and transferring the recorded conversation. A progress bar appeared in the middle of the screen, the little blue line slowly and steadily reaching for the 100 percent marker.
Blaine knew the file transfer would take some time, so he started going through Potter’s phone to cross-reference his and Rhianna’s calendars. Everything matched up just like Thea had guessed.
He read through Kendrick’s email and eventual text conversations with Rhianna. As time passed, the messages were more obsessive, more upsetting. A look at the call log revealed phone calls that increased in frequency and length. Blaine was certain that, once a warrant was obtained, the professor’s laptop would reveal similar evidence.
“Poor girl,” Blaine thought, “she just wanted help.” While Blaine was happy justice would be served to Kendrick Potter, he couldn’t help but feel sad for Rhianna’s lost potential.
The blue progress bar on Blaine’s laptop was at 43 percent, so he decided to work on a different project while he waited for it to finish. He scrolled through his own phone until he found the person he was looking for and pressed the call button.
It rang a couple of times before the man on the other end answered.
“Hello?” he said in a calm, professional tone.
“Hey David, it’s Blaine Coburn.”
“Blaine? Hey, man, what’s up?” David responded, switching from his “work” voice to his “friendly” voice.
“Oh, you know, just catching bad guys,” Blaine said and smiled. David was a fellow police officer, one of Blaine’s old partners from his time in the Chicago P.D.
“You always were great at that,” David replied. “But you never were the talkative type. I’m guessing you need help with something?”
Blaine chuckled and said, “Man, you always could read me like that. As a matter of fact, I do want to talk to you about this case.”
“Sure man, shoot. I’ll see what I can do.”
Blaine began by explaining t
he situation with Thea’s mom, Selena, and how she had been scared back to Ardensville during her final year in college.
“I figured that if this stalker or ex or whatever was serious enough to make a strong woman like Selena run away, it must have gone to the police at some point too.”
“So you want me to do some digging and see what I can find out about the case?” David asked.
“Bingo. That is if it’s not too much trouble.”
“No worries. I’m always happy to help a friend out. If you don’t mind my asking, who is this woman?”
Blaine was caught off-guard by David’s question, so he stammered out his response.
“Oh, erm, she’s the mom of someone I really care about, that’s all.”
“Mmm, I see,” David responded knowingly. “A woman, I’m guessing?” Even if David’s intonation implied a question, he and Blaine both knew it was more of a statement.
“Yeah, a woman. She doesn’t know a lot about her parents, but this came up recently and it’s really bothering her. I just want to help her out. She’s done a lot for me ever since I moved back to Ardensville.”
“Now, correct me if I’m wrong,” David said, “but it sounds like she’s more than a friend. Is this woman someone special?”
At that moment, something in Blaine’s brain clicked and he began grinning.
“Yes, very special. David, I love her.” Blaine was shocked at how easily the words came out of his mouth. He loved Thea, and he always had. He couldn’t stop smiling.
“Ooh,” said David on the other end of the line. “Well, I can’t get in between a man and the woman he loves. I’ll see what I can find out about this stalker and get back to you soon.”
“Thanks, David. I appreciate your help more than you know.”
“I think I have a bit of an idea, but it’s no problem regardless. You just owe me one. Maybe you and this lady can visit the city sometime and you can buy me a slice.”
“I’d like that, man,” Blaine replied. “Talk soon?”
Spooky Magic (Tabby Kitten Mystery Book 4) Page 10
