“You couldn’t break into my house if you tried.”
I couldn’t?
She quickly waved a hand at the camera on her side. “Forget I said that. Please. It’s not a challenge, Zara. Before I went away with your mother, I put some extra protective wards on my house. Please don’t go over there. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“Shouldn’t you have put the wards on my house? I mean, if you were going away...?”
“I did,” she said.
“Oh.” I’d been gearing up to give her a hard time, and now I had nothing. I looked down at my hands, and then at the open book on my desk.
The mere glimpse of a woodcut illustration in Zarnov’s Big Book of Mythical Bedtime Tales gave me a powerful urge to yawn. I slammed the book shut for my own protection.
As the book closed, air movement stirred some loose papers. The top sheet was a color printout, a photograph of one of Krinkle’s other miniature crime scenes. It was the office, the one which held the woman in the green dress, lying in blood on the floor.
I reached for the paper. “Aunt Zinnia, do you mind if I show you something that might be upsetting?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you ask for permission before upsetting me?”
“I’m serious. It’s a crime scene from before I moved here. I’m guessing you might have been friends with the victim.”
She leaned back in her chair in one smooth movement. From my perspective, watching her on my laptop screen, she appeared to be shrinking in size, becoming a smaller and smaller version of the Zinnia Riddle I knew.
Her voice came through smaller as well. “You don’t need to show me,” she said. “Is it Annette Scholem?”
“That’s the name Bentley gave me.”
“I suppose I ought to tell you everything about my dear friend Annette,” she said, slowly and sadly. “I would rather not, but you ought to know, in case her death is in any way connected to today’s kidnapping.” She held up one finger. “Give me a moment to prepare a fresh pot of tea, and we’ll begin.”
I jumped off my chair. “While you’re at it, I’ll nuke myself some cold coffee. I’d get Ribbons to steam it for me, but he’s out helping the search party.”
We both prepared our hot beverages, leaving the screens on. We returned, got settled, and she began.
*
When she was done telling her story, my coffee was cold again. I hadn’t taken a single sip.
“I’m speechless,” I said.
My aunt offered up the first smile in over an hour. “That’s a first,” she said.
“You are one tough lady,” I said. “I... I don’t know what to say.”
“Say that you promise to be careful with spirits. Even more careful than you’ve been.” She sipped her tea. “Spirits are not supposed to affect the living, but, as I found out first-hand, they don’t always obey the rules. They can manipulate objects they were connected to in life, including their own remains.”
I shuddered at the idea of a ghost animating her own cremated ashes to take revenge.
“I’ll be careful,” I promised, and then, “I miss you.”
She coughed into her hand. “I’ll be back soon. I’m exhausted from your mother dragging me from one country to another. It all blurs together. I swear, after you’ve seen one palatial mansion owned by a supernatural billionaire, you’ve seen them all.”
“Sounds rough,” I said.
She started to say something else, but she was interrupted by my mother flouncing into view, her black hair flying and a strange, cat-like creature in her arms.
Then I had to explain my whole day all over again to my mother, who was absolutely no help at all.
Chapter 17
SUNDAY MORNING
There was no news on the missing persons case as of Sunday morning. We’d been hoping for something concrete, like a ransom call, but there had been none. Bentley assured me the outcome could still be good. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet. It was possible the dog had chased a squirrel into the woods, and the woman had lost her bearings.
I doubted that scenario was true. Between Ribbons and Zoey in fox form, not to mention all the shifters at the DWM, a woman and a dog lost in the woods would have been found by now.
But I would try to maintain my optimism regardless.
I jumped out of bed and hit up my closet for wardrobe suggestions. My closet served up an uncomfortable yet very cute bra, a frilly blouse, and nothing else.
“That’s it?” I stared at my overstuffed closet in disbelief. “Are you trusting me to pick out my own pants, or am I supposed to wear this top with my pajama bottoms?”
No response from the closet, or the house.
I shrugged and dressed the top part of my body as suggested. I would wait until later to select the rest. Sometimes there was a delay on the spell. I might find the perfect pants laid out on my bed after breakfast. Pajama bottoms were fine for now. And it was the weekend, after all.
I brushed my hair, then started the process of getting my teenager prepared for the day.
Zoey was scheduled to start working at the museum. In spite of everything going on, we’d decided it was for the best if she stuck to her commitments.
It would be her first gig that wasn’t a self-employment endeavor, such as the plant-watering business she started when she was ten. That business had been more of a ruse to gain access to the apartments of “normal” people than it had been about earning money. She’d also taken an interest in bartending at the age of twelve, but my drinking habits—or the lack thereof—hadn’t led to many tips. That made the job at the museum her first “real” job, and I couldn’t think of a better place for her to get her start. Well, there was one other place. But a museum was nearly as good as a library.
Thanks to my chirpy encouragement, I got my grumbling, yawning daughter through the shower, into clean clothes, and down to the kitchen for a nourishing breakfast.
She watched sleepily as I used magic to peel uncooked eggs and then soft-boil them.
The peeling was part of my novice witch lessons. It was the equivalent of a musician learning to play scales perfectly before tackling songs. Raw-egg peeling wasn’t supposed to be fun, yet I had grown to enjoy it the way some people loved solving Sudoku puzzles. Whenever I was levitating an egg and carefully shucking away the delicate shell, one piece at a time, the rest of the world faded away. There was only the egg.
I put Zoey’s breakfast in front of her with a flourish. She didn’t move; she appeared to be sleeping with her eyes open.
I sat next to her and put my arm around her shoulders.
She woke up, wiped drool from the side of her mouth, and grabbed her fork to dig in.
“You don’t absolutely have to start the job today,” I said. “The people at the museum would understand if you told them your friend went missing and you were up all night looking for him.”
“Except I can’t tell them that,” she said. “The official story is that a woman went missing, with a dog. If word got out that a little boy was with her, it would be a national news story.”
“And if word got out the little boy was a hellhound shifter, that would be an international news story. Or an interplanetary news story. Imagine the Martians who could be reading about it right now over their morning coffee, or whatever they drink on Mars. Over their Martian coffee that they serve with marshmallow topping.”
“Don’t,” Zoey said grumpily. “Just... don’t. No jokes.”
I gave her a one-armed hug. “I’m worried about Corvin, too. Just as much as you are. You know I deal with stressful situations by making my delightfully humorous observations.”
She grumbled something under her breath as she violently mashed the soft-boiled eggs with the back of her fork.
I retreated to a safe distance while she took out her frustrations on the breakfast.
*
Zoey had just driven away in Foxy Pumpkin—all tires fixed, inflated, and wor
king perfectly—when another car pulled up in front of the house.
A man in a gray suit stepped out. He did a double-take when he saw me standing on the porch in my pajama pants.
“You knew I was coming?” Bentley asked as he walked up the pathway to the house.
I started to say something glib, but it caught in my throat. Watching my daughter drive away for her first day at work had stirred something.
“Zoey just left for work at the museum,” I said. “I was planning to stand here on the porch a few more minutes, then go inside and cry for a while.”
He shuffled back a few steps and gave me a look of genuine surprise. He hadn’t expected such honesty.
I was surprised, too, until I remembered the oath I’d sworn to him the day before. My word is my bond. It wasn’t just lip service. The bond would fade over time, and it could even be overridden, but it took great effort for a supernatural to break a vow once given.
“I wouldn’t want to interrupt your process,” Bentley said.
“No worries. I don’t feel like crying anymore,” I said brightly. “Funny how talking about your feelings puts them into tidy little boxes so you don’t have to feel them so much.” I glanced over at the house next door—the blue one, where the Moore family lived. “Any news?”
“No news. Still no ransom call, either. How about here?” He lowered his voice. “Any visitors?”
He meant ghosts. “Not yet, which I’ll take as good news.” I pointed to my open doorway with my thumb. “Do you need a hand with anything? Let me grab my purse and make sure the cat has food, then I’m all yours for the day.”
He rubbed his chin, which was showing dark stubble. He’d been up all night. His eyes didn’t show any dark circles, but the detective wouldn’t show the usual signs of having been up all night. Not since he’d gained supernatural powers. His kind was energized by staying up overnight, especially on moonless nights. According to my Monster Manual, he was on the opposite schedule of wolf and dog shifters, who were energized by the moon and not its absence.
“Thanks for the offer,” he said. “What I’d like to do right now, more than anything, is experience for myself those soft-boiled eggs you were telling me about yesterday.”
“Sure,” I waved him into the house. “The Red Witch House Diner is open for business. The cook will be serving up breakfast for a few more hours.”
Bentley paused, looking over at the house next door. Grampa Don was standing on the porch, watching us. The old man was dressed formally, as though he was expecting a visitor, or preparing to leave the house.
“Hello, Mr. Moore,” Bentley called out, then he started walking over to Grampa Don.
Don waved his hands as though swatting the detective away. “I don’t need you to hold my hand,” he said, in his usual irritated fashion. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got trees of my own to shake. You stick to your job.”
“Will do, sir.” Bentley jabbed a thumb in my direction. “I’m just taking a meal break to clear the cobwebs from my head.”
“To clear the cobwebs from your head? What the wing dang doodle is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s just an expression, Mr. Moore.”
Don rapped on his head with one fist. “No cobwebs in here,” he said. “Not anymore.”
“That’s... good to hear.”
Don waved the detective away again. “Get going,” he said. “I’ve got someone to see.” He pointed to the taxi that was pulling to a stop in front of the house. “There’s my ride.”
Bentley handed Don his card and told the old man to call him if he needed anything at all during this difficult time.
Don snorted. “Difficult time? This is nothing. That kid will be back like a dirty sock.” He patted Bentley on the shoulder, then cackled all the way into the back of the taxi.
Chapter 18
DON MOORE
Don Moore slid into the back seat of the taxi and gave the driver the address of his old friend, Felix Wonder.
“What a coincidence,” the driver replied.
If Don had been in his wolf form, his hackles would have gone up. There was one word he hated hearing: coincidence. He didn’t believe in such things. How could he, knowing what he did about magic?
“Yeah?” He waited for further explanation from the driver, who was, to his surprise, an attractive young woman—young by Don’s standards, anyway. She looked about forty, her light brown hair treated with those blonde streaks ladies her age believed hid the gray.
“Must be a party,” the woman mused.
Don scowled. What the wing dang doodle was she yammering on about?
She didn’t offer more as she pulled away from the curb.
He didn’t press her for details. He wanted to know who else had taken a taxi to Felix’s house that morning, but he wasn’t going to beg this woman. He’d done enough begging, and enough pleading, and more than enough bargaining these last few years. He’d put in all that effort, just to be treated with some dignity by his know-it-all son, Chet.
Lately, Don’s only child had taken to calling himself the Sandwich Generation, joking about how looking after Don and Corvin at the same time felt like having two kids. The indignity of being compared to the boy like that!
Now that Don’s bedeviled mind was coming back under his control, his begging days were over.
Things were going to change.
And all he’d had to do was make a deal with the devil.
Not that Dr. Aliyah Ankh was a devil. He’d seen devils before, and she was far from one. But she wasn’t like the other people or creatures he’d worked with during all his years with the Department.
The scenery whizzed by.
The female taxi driver talked, but she didn’t reveal the identity of whomever it was she’d taken to Felix’s house. She worked her mouth on the usual jibber-jabber, which Don nodded through without comment.
They pulled up in front of Felix’s house.
The woman with the streaked hair gave him the total fare.
He paid, and he tipped well. He didn’t feel justified in holding her jibber-jabber against her. But mainly he didn’t want to wait around while she sighed and slowly counted out the change, the way all taxi drivers did. As though she’d never done math before, or handled money, and didn’t know what quarters were, let alone how they might magically add up to fifty cents.
He hopped out of the taxi and sprang up the walkway to Felix’s front door.
Dr. Ankh’s treatments hadn’t just rejuvenated the holes in his mind; they’d put the spring back in his step. Don Moore was pushing seventy, but going on twenty. He might even be able to shift again—not into the bony old wolf with the gray muzzle, but the young version of himself, with powerful muscles in his haunches and ears that could hear the nibbling of a tasty field mouse ten yards away.
The door swung open. Felix Wonder stepped into the doorway and gave Don a big smile immediately.
Felix had a narrow jaw and a narrow set of teeth, so a broad smile always afforded a view to the back of the man’s mouth at the sides. Felix hadn’t aged much in the last decade. Same small, quick-moving eyes that didn’t miss anything. Same ashy blonde hair that hid a few strands of gray. If one thing had changed, it was that Felix’s rainbow suspenders were mere decoration now, no longer needed to hold up his trousers. He was still thin, but he wasn’t skinny.
“What a surprise,” Felix said. He leaned over to look behind Don, probably expecting to see an escort.
“Double surprise,” Don said, grinning. “I’m here on my own, old man.”
Felix gave him an appraising look. “Is that so? They let you wander around town without a hall pass?”
Don rapped on his head with his knuckles. “No hall pass needed. The ol’ noggin is back in steel trap mode.”
Felix chuckled as he stepped back and invited Don inside. “Come on in. I’m glad your head’s feeling better. Mind what comes out of your mouth, though. My niece is here. Bellatrix.”
/> “Old Chicken Legs? With the big boobs?”
Felix chortled and tucked his thumbs into his rainbow suspenders. “No sooner do I tell you to watch your mouth than it gets ten times worse.” He shook his head. “I’ve never known anyone as ornery and contradictory as you, Don. Whatever happened to your good sense? To never passing up the opportunity to keep your mouth shut?”
“I’m done shutting my mouth.”
“Well, all right then. I’ll let you keep flapping your gums, as long as you’re halfway respectful. She is my niece, after all.” Felix gave Don a warning look before leading him to the kitchen.
Don expected to see Bellatrix Wonder sitting at the table, but she wasn’t there. It was a different woman. A lovely woman. A friend of Old Chicken Legs?
Don blinked hard and looked again.
He’d been wrong at first glance. The woman was Bellatrix after all, but she looked different.
He wordlessly took a seat across the table from her, then he played the game of noting everything that was different about the woman. Instead of the brassy bleached hair she used to have, she’d returned to a natural, honey-brown shade. Gone were the ostentatious fake diamonds she used to wear studding both ears. Gone were the rings, as well, and the bracelets. She wasn’t wearing one single piece of jewelry. And then there was her chest! He didn’t mean to look, but he couldn’t not look. Her chest was a regular size. Either she’d had the surgery reversed, or it hadn’t been surgery in the first place, and all she’d needed to do was stop wearing whatever feminine contraption she’d been using to shove her boobs up toward her chin.
Her face was the same, but looked nicer without the gaudy makeup she used to wear. She still had buck teeth, and her soft, recessed jaw was not a woman’s best feature, but... those eyes! Like small but precious emeralds. How had he never noticed how lovely they were? And how all her features were actually in perfect balance, imperfect though the individual elements were? Even the widow’s peak at the top of her forehead worked, given how it shaped her face into a heart. A perfectly lovely heart.
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