“We’re going to need her name, too, as well as anyone else who was working and can corroborate this.”
I gave them Ximena and Trish’s names, then fumbled my phone from my pocket. “Hang on — here’s their contact information.”
“Thanks.” O’Reilly took the phone and jotted some notes into her notebook.
Fontana took a step away and swept his gaze over the empty tables and chairs. “Looks like a nice place. Might have to come back some time when you’re open.”
“Am I allowed to give you both a coffee on the house if you do stop in?”
He shook his head. “Captain frowns on it. Besides, good coffee is always worth paying for.”
O’Reilly closed her notebook and slid it into an inside pocket. “I think we’re done here. It doesn’t look like anything’s been taken, but if you notice anything odd over the next day or so, please get in touch.” She handed me a card. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride home.”
Morning came too soon, but at least I didn’t have to deal with children who didn’t want to get up and go to school. It was another Monday, which meant that wasn’t my responsibility today. I wasn’t sure how I’d manage after I moved, but that was a worry for next month. I did feel a twinge of guilt because I’d already disrupted Jinhong’s sleep, but when I tapped on Wei and Benjamin’s door to let them know I was leaving, Wei answered.
“Mother left a note explaining that you’d been out in the middle of the night. Was there any damage to the coffee shop?”
I shook my head. “The burglar didn’t manage to get inside before he was caught.”
Thanks to my ward — but I didn’t know what my ward had done. Leaving someone repeating a phrase over and over seemed like pretty much the opposite of the healing effects I’d noticed. Reflecting the burglar’s ill intent back on him with that final layer? I’d have to make sure I hadn’t added some sort of amplification effect to the ward. I wasn’t trying to turn people catatonic. More guilt to carry.
“Small mercies,” she said. Then she tilted her head to one side. “Mother said you’ve added some magic to your lock upstairs?”
I didn’t explain. “Knock. The twins will let you in.”
Her lips tightened, but she didn’t argue with me, for which I was grateful. I headed off to the Wicked Whatever for the second time in a handful of hours, walking briskly to protect against the night’s remaining chill.
The ward had retracted while I’d been gone. It still formed a magical dome that extended about ten feet beyond the building, but the entire neighborhood wasn’t encased in my magic any more. I went inside and headed for the back.
Now that the police weren’t here, I pulsed my magic more actively, looking for anything out of place. No openings, no magic. Currents of electricity hummed through the walls, my ward piggy-backing on them — and an unfamiliar electrical device sat in my office, not integrated into the ward. Curious, I opened my door and went in to look.
The voice-activated recorder was tucked between the computer and a cup full of pens — not hidden, per se, but likely to be overlooked. I picked it up, turned it over, then used the office phone to call Officer O’Reilly and ask her to pick up the recorder that they’d inadvertently left behind.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She sounded even more annoyed over the phone than she had in person. “Give me a few minutes to wake up, and I’ll call you back.”
I sat and waited. True, the recorder didn’t have to belong to them. But who else would bother? Hmm. Kendall might want to keep tabs on me, I supposed. Or Svetlana, trying to figure out more about me, how to use me, to get me to bring Clay back. Or maybe Freddy planted it for Rich, who wasn’t above trying something underhanded to take me down, even if he’d already left. For that matter, since I hadn’t really examined the electrical layer of the ward in months, Rich himself could have planted it before he quit. Just because I hadn’t noticed it before this morning didn’t mean it hadn’t been there.
Five minutes later, O’Reilly called me back. “Sorry. Fontana texted me, wanted to know if I’d seen his recorder because he misplaced it. He’ll swing by and get it later.”
“No worries.” I forced cheer into my voice, though there was no way the recorder had accidentally been tucked away as it had been. “I’ll just pop it into the safe at eight, so it doesn’t go wandering again. He’d better come by before it locks again this evening, though.”
“I’ll let him know.” I couldn’t tell whether she realized I was deliberately planning to put it into a soundproof safe.
Before I put it into the safe, though, I checked to see what, if anything, it had recorded. My side of the phone calls with O’Reilly, of course — before that, O’Reilly and Fontana.
“What’s that for?” O’Reilly.
“Because I think she knows more than she’s saying about how that guy wound up gibbering on her doorstep.”
“She wasn’t even here.”
“I don’t care. She wasn’t nearly surprised enough to see that broken key, or to hear that the guy who tried to break in didn’t run away. You could see it in her face.”
“Yeah, but she didn’t do anything.” Interesting that she was the one defending me when I wasn’t around.
“I don’t care. It’s weird. I don’t like weird. You gotta wonder about drugs. Coffee shop would make a nice cover.”
“The recording can’t be used as evidence.”
“No, but it might tell me — us — where to find the evidence.”
I let it play to the end of my second conversation with O’Reilly. No point in advertising that I’d listened to it. Also no point in using my magic to erase it, though I was tempted. But that would just make him more convinced something weird was going on.
I empathized with him. It was weird because magic is weird. But it wasn’t the kind of weird that he’d hear about in my office, even accidentally. At most, he’d hear me asking Freddy if he knew what Rich was up to.
After dropping the recorder in the middle of the desk so I’d remember to move it to the safe, I hung my coat and headed to the kitchen to start prepping for the day. I was getting really tired of people “accidentally” dropping off their electronic devices in my spaces, and I could use some routine to blunt my annoyance.
Chapter 19
Mondays are always a mix of oddities, people reluctant to go back to work, tourists staying over an extra day to avoid the Sunday rush, and some who didn’t seem to fit any particular category except “only in Boston.” When Ximena came in looking a little winded, I pointed her to the back room. “Rest for a few. Use your inhaler if you need it. I’ll be fine until you’re ready to come up.”
She nodded gratefully and went back without a word.
My statement that I’d be fine might have been a touch of overconfidence. I took money, mixed drinks, smiled at customers, and tried not to groan as each opening of the door heralded yet more people to wait in line. Taking a deep breath, I reached out gently and pulsed the ward. It reacted instantly, sending a tendril of soothing energy toward me. Okay, yes, definitely a healing touch. I pulsed it again, thinking warm thoughts about the people in front of me. The changes were subtle, shoulders relaxing, a forehead less furrowed, intense looks changing to gaze off into the distance.
In this calmer atmosphere, I continued working, stepping to one side to focus on making drinks when Ximena came back to cover the register, a spring in her step. The ward had evidently touched her, too. On the one hand, this was encouraging for my studies. On the other, I wanted to know how to do it deliberately, how to focus it. I’d hurt too many over the past year, seen too many others ill or injured. It wasn’t fair to leave it like this, a nebulous anodyne that cured nothing, simply eased the bruises of daily life.
I should be able to do more.
Officers Fontana and O’Reilly opened the door. The serious looks on their faces didn’t change as they entered and walked up to the counter, ignoring the line.
“Can I help you?” Ximena asked.
I touched her shoulder. “I’ve got this.” I nodded to the officers. “I’ll just be a moment.”
Annoyingly, they followed me to the office. I ducked behind the desk and squatted to open the safe. As I turned back to look up at them, the recorder in my hand, O’Reilly said, “Finn’s brother is in the psych ward. He’s still completely unresponsive. Why don’t you tell us what’s really going on here?”
I raised my eyebrows inquiringly. Since I’d listened to the recorder, I had a good idea what sort of goings-on they were fishing for, but as there were no drugs on the premises — assuming the trollmiod didn’t count as such — there was nothing to tell them. “Rich has a brother? He wasn’t listed as an emergency contact on Rich’s records.”
Fontana’s eyes narrowed a little, barely a twitch. If I hadn’t been watching for a reaction, I wouldn’t have noticed it. “You can tell us the truth, you know. If Finn was dealing drugs out of the coffee shop, no one’s going to blame you for firing him.”
“There are no drugs in the Wicked Whatever, and as far as I know, Rich was not dealing anywhere else. And as I told you, I didn’t fire him — he quit.”
“There’s a lot you don’t seem to know,” O’Reilly cut in. “Not his family, not what he was doing in his spare time. You could’ve missed it.” A beat. “Or you could have stumbled on it and decided you wanted to take it over because the money drugs bring in is much better than the money for coffee.”
I couldn’t help it; I snorted. After closing the safe up again, I stood and reached across the table to hand them the recorder. “I promise we don’t have anything stronger here than caffeine. It’s true that I don’t know what Rich was up to when he wasn’t at work, but I’d be surprised if it was something truly unsavory. Working a second job? Sure. Drinking a lot with his buddies and the brother I didn’t even know he had? Why not? I could even see him saying he wished someone would make me look like an idiot so I would get fired, then leaving the key to the coffee shop out for someone else to take it. But that’s as far as I think he’d go.”
“If that’s true, why’s his brother unresponsive? That’s not normal.”
No, it wasn’t, and that was one more person my magic had hurt, one more person to try to heal. I blamed Rich for this one, though. He was getting closer to me crossing the line and using Bitter on him, even if he’d had no way to know his brother would be hurt by the attempted break-in.
“I don’t know. I was home in bed, and from what you told me, he never even made it inside. A seizure, maybe? I really don’t know.”
Neither of them looked satisfied, but they turned to go. As he reached the doorway, Fontana glanced back. “When’s Finn’s nephew due in?”
“Nephew?” I didn’t even have to pretend not understanding.
“Frederick Sullivan. I understand he works here.”
I blinked. “Freddy’s his nephew?”
It explained so much — why Rich wanted to give Freddy a break, why Freddy was so loyal to Rich. It didn’t explain their different last names or why Rich’s brother would come here, but it was a step in the right direction.
Shaking my head to clear these thoughts, I said, “He’s not. Not today, anyway.” I motioned to the hallway. “The schedule’s in the break area. You can see he’s not coming in until Wednesday.”
“Do you have his current address?” O’Reilly asked. “We’d like to tell him about his father.”
“As far as I know, he lived at home. He planned to move out and take his younger brother with him, but he was still there.”
They traded looks and nodded. “That’s what his brother said, too, but Frederick hasn’t been home. You have my card. Let me know when he comes in.”
“Is he suspected of something?”
O’Reilly shook her head. “No, there’s no way he had anything to do with what happened to his father. But we’ve got his brother in protective custody right now, and we’d rather release him to Frederick than to Finn.”
What a choice. Rich, who they thought might be dealing drugs, or Freddy, who was not technically a minor, but certainly wasn’t in a position to support himself and his brother yet.
“I’ll let you know,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say or what to do. I couldn’t go looking for Freddy. I couldn’t really do anything for him and his brother other than give him extra shifts, which would be time his brother was alone. Maybe I could find someone else who would be willing to keep an eye on them both? But any help from me would be viewed with suspicion by Rich, and I got the feeling that he’d be more than happy to share his doubts with Freddy, the police, and anyone else who would listen. That’s why the police were back here, asking questions, right?
I wanted to help. I wanted to swoop in and make everything right, and fix their relationships and soothe their wounds and — but I couldn’t. I couldn’t fix people’s minds, couldn’t change them to be what I wanted them to be. Not really. I’d done a partial job with Clay, wiping his memories of a section of time, but I knew that hadn’t changed who he was deep down, and it had caused other problems as well. I’d never even tried with Matt. Maybe because I knew I couldn’t make such a shift in his fundamental nature. I don’t know.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” I said now, knowing that there wasn’t. Or was there? First thing I was going to do after they left was call Lashonda. The crowd out front would wait for a few more minutes while I asked her to look out for Freddy’s brother. It was a small gesture, but it was something.
After that, work held nothing out of the ordinary. I relished the change, and happily worked an hour extra to help get ahead for the evening and tomorrow morning before taking off and heading for the T for the gathering at Maggie’s — making sure to stop along the way and send Alex’s cellphone and business card back to him. I hoped he’d take the hint.
At Maggie’s, Lashonda cornered me in the kitchen. “I hear you and Carlos had a good time together last week.”
The plan was to give her her gifts after most of the others had left, so I couldn’t tell her what all we’d been doing. I settled for nodding. “He’s probably still not ready for my kids, though. They can be a handful.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Lashonda reached for a Milano. “If I had a choice, I’d weigh in on the file and say that your ex hasn’t got half the brains or energy to keep up with that pair, and they should definitely stay with you. But that’s not something I can do.”
“I’m sure you would. Don’t worry about it. It’s in the judge’s hands now. Well, and whatever happens during our final appearance.” I shrugged uncomfortably. I didn’t want to talk about the custody battle here in front of the other witches. We didn’t talk about family much here. As far as I could tell, though, it wasn’t forbidden so much as elided. Only Maggie and I had family members who were also witches — and most of them, maybe all of them, believed that magic didn’t run in families, so if I told them that my children had magic, they would assume I had pledged the children to my patron. I didn’t think any of them would approve of that, so I didn’t talk about my kids.
Lashonda picked up on my reluctance and changed the subject back. “So tell me what you and Carlos got up to.”
Fortunately, I could tell her some of what we’d done, so I regaled her with Carlos’s attempts to get me to buy new boots for winter.
“You should trust him. He’s got great taste.”
“I am not walking to work wearing boots with three-inch heels that aren’t even practical in snow and ice, and I don’t care how good they make my legs look.” That wasn’t what Carlos had said, but it sounded better in mixed company.
“Maybe you should just change into them when you get there. You might get more tips.”
“I’m behind the counter most of the time. Nobody’s going to see the difference.”
“Clearly, time to come out of your shell.”
“Shell?” Carlos walked over. “Tell
me you did not find another mollusk!”
They laughed together, and Lashonda said, “You’re the one who found the octopus. You can’t blame me.”
“You pointed me in that direction.”
“I guess I did. You talked to him lately?”
I looked between the two of them, a little jealous of their easy friendship with its shared history. “Talked to the octopus? You mentioned an aquarium for one, but you didn’t say anything about talking to it.”
“It’s complicated,” Lashonda said, at the same time as Carlos said, “Not so much an octopus any more.”
“A were-octopus?” That would be a new one.
Lashonda stepped aside in the awkward dance necessitated by the narrow house, moving to get drinks while Carlos settled down on a stool. “You could call him that,” he said, “but Nero would take offense at it. He calls himself a nereid, and he changes from human to octopus to, oh, something like Ursula in The Little Mermaid, half and half. If he ever gets his act together, I might bring him to one of these meetings.”
“I look forward to it.” A nereid was no weirder than muses and sirens and trolls. I’d have to ask Haris what he knew about nereids and whether they were really shapeshifters. Although in Greek mythology, that wasn’t exactly a rare talent.
Carlos accepted the glass of tonic that Lashonda handed him and asked, “Did she tell you about the boots?”
“She complained about three-inch heels.”
He waved away the objection. “Totally worth it. It made her ass look almost as good as yours.”
High praise indeed, but I still wasn’t walking to work in them.
Oil crept over my arms, and I looked up to see Anneke approaching. Her expression was calculating, but I forced a smile and greeted her pleasantly.
She reached for a couple of the cookies and without meeting any of our eyes, asked, “So what deep and dark secrets of magic are you talking about over here?”
Troll Tunnels Page 15
