Pawsitively Swindled

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  Amber’s phone buzzing in her purse saved her from having to answer that. She pulled it out to see the chief was calling her. “Hang on one sec, Bianca?”

  Bianca shrugged, and focused her attention down the street.

  “Hey, chief. What’s up?”

  “Hi. I need Cassie’s help. Do you have some time today?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got the rest of the afternoon off. I can be there in a few; I’m across the street,” she said. “You want anything from Coffee Cat?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve already had three caramelized honey lattes today. That place should be illegal. Which is saying a lot, coming from me.”

  Amber laughed. “Okay, I’ll see you soon.”

  She hung up and slipped her phone into her back pocket. She could only imagine what he needed a psychic’s help with now, but it gave her a way out of lunch with Bianca. Amber wondered if she should grab something quick to go, before she met with the chief. “Sorry about that. Thanks for the invite, but the chief wants to meet with me; he can drop me off later. Thanks for the ride.”

  “Is that who just called you? Seems like an awfully casual chat between a resident and the chief of police.” Bianca wrinkled her perfect little nose at Amber. “You and the chief really are … pals, huh? That rumor has even reached Marbleglen.”

  She said the word “pals” like it was the dirtiest word in the English language.

  All desire for lunch forgotten, Amber glared at Bianca. “He knows my secret. When he runs into problems he can’t solve in ordinary ways, he calls me. More than likely,” Amber added, a bite to her tone, “whatever he wants to talk to me about has to do with helping your father.” She might have gotten more used to Bianca, but it didn’t mean she always liked her. She hiked her purse a little higher onto her shoulder. “Have a good day.”

  Then she stalked away from Bianca.

  “Amber!” she called after her.

  Amber kept moving. She heard Bianca curse under her breath, admonishing herself—most likely for forgetting—again—that Amber didn’t have to help her. This wasn’t Amber’s fight.

  And anyway, Amber’s efforts were for Simon and the late Eric Jameson, not her. As much as Amber didn’t owe either man anything, she owed even less to Bianca.

  Bianca felt terrible right now for being her usual monstrous self? Good.

  Within a couple minutes, Amber strolled into the Edgehill police station.

  “Go on back,” Dolores said, typing away. “He’s expecting you.”

  The chief was behind his desk on his phone when Amber walked in. He held up a finger to indicate he’d be with her in a second. Amber closed the door and perused his shelves until the call ended.

  “That’s great, Wilma. Yeah, I just talked to her and she’s game,” the chief finally said. “No, no, thank you. This will help us both. I really appreciate it. About twenty minutes? Got it. See you soon.”

  Amber turned to face him when he hung up the phone. “Wilma as in Wilma Jameson?”

  “One and the same,” the chief said. “I got in contact with her again back when you said you needed access to the house. Apparently Daniels kept telling Wilma that she couldn’t go into the house just yet because it was an active crime scene. She said she didn’t want to fight him on that, as he scares the bejesus out of her, but he granted her access yesterday.” He stood. “Which means you and I—well, Cassie—now have access. Jameson left her the house in his will and she wants the place … cleansed? … before she moves in. She was hoping you could help clear the place of any bad mojo. She’s meeting us there.”

  Amber didn’t have the first clue how to cleanse a place of bad mojo, but she supposed Cassie Westbottom would, so Amber would have to improvise. She hoped she didn’t disappoint Wilma.

  “You up for this? I thought you’d be excited and bouncing around. You look a little queasy,” he said. “Did I mess up when I volunteered your services?”

  “It’s not that,” Amber said quickly. “A memory retrieval spell conducted in that house is likely going to show me who pulled that trigger. I can tell Wilma exactly who killed her father. Plus, I mean, what if Simon really did do it? What if his magic and the Rohyphnol clashed so badly that he did something terrible and doesn’t remember? His court date is only three days away now. I guess that just feels like a lot of pressure all of a sudden.”

  “Dang it,” the chief said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Amber. I should have asked first. I didn’t mean—”

  Amber held up her hand. “It’s okay. Honestly.” She headed for the door. “Let’s go. We have to go back to my apartment for a minute so I can get a time retrieval spell out of my grimoire, and then I need to put on my face.”

  The chief grumbled under his breath. “First time in my life I’ve heard a woman say that and mean it literally.”

  On the drive over, Amber relayed to the chief what she’d just learned from Misty. Thankfully, the chief hadn’t had any recent dealings with Jane Victoria Lyles-Sullivan.

  Like before, she changed her appearance in waves. A new nose here, an eye color change there, and then the biggest change—her long brown hair becoming a short A-line blonde bob. The last one always seemed to affect the chief the most, and when Amber altered her hair just as they turned down a heavily tree-lined street, he let out a muted gasp of surprise. She ignored him.

  Though Amber had never physically been to Eric Jameson’s house, she recognized it instantly when the chief pulled up outside. She’d seen it in her mind during the memory retrieval spell she’d done on Simon.

  It was a single-story beige house with black trim around the windows, a black front door, and a tidy, if browning, front lawn. Though it was a house in Marbleglen, there weren’t any flowers outside—not even a festive wreath decorated the door. The only color came from the tree in the corner of the yard that was covered in little yellow flowers that Amber suspected were well on their way to becoming oranges.

  Wilma had yet to arrive, so Amber and the chief waited in the car.

  “Do you need materials of some kind to do a cleansing?” he asked.

  “I really don’t know,” Amber said. “But I figure I can tell her I can’t know what type of cleansing the place might need until I see what the energy is like in there. Then I can figure out what to do after that.”

  Wilma pulled up in a beat-up Honda a minute later. She walked down the sidewalk with her gaze focused on the house. If the eighteen-year-old had looked rail thin the last time Amber had seen her, she looked nearly skeletal now. She stood at the end of the walkway that led to the front door.

  When Amber and the chief got out of the car just behind Wilma, she whirled around, clearly on edge. But when she saw who it was, she offered them a small smile and nervously tucked her long, stringy brown hair behind her ears. She wore a plain black T-shirt, worn jeans, chunky black boots, and didn’t carry a purse of any kind. She had her car keys clipped to a loop of her jeans with a carabiner, and her cell phone was in her back pocket.

  The time retrieval spell Amber would need soon was tucked in her own back pocket.

  “Thanks so much for doing this,” Wilma said, attention focused solely on Amber. “I really didn’t expect to get a house out of all this. It’s already paid off.”

  She looked overwhelmed. She’d lost both of her parents in a short period of time—one quick and one slow. And now she was the owner of a house in a neighborhood that was far more middle-class than the one her little apartment was in. Unfortunately for Amber, she knew all too well what it felt like to be an orphan at a young age, not knowing what on earth to do next.

  “Happy to help,” Amber said in her high-and-light Cassie voice, then told Wilma the same thing she’d told the chief: she would need to assess the house’s energy before she could make recommendations on cleansings.

  Wilma nodded vigorously. “Should we go in?” She turned and headed for the front door before either of them could reply.

  “Is this the house you
grew up in?” the chief asked as he and Amber followed Wilma up the path.

  “Oh gosh no,” Wilma said. “This place is way fancier than anything we lived in growing up. After my parents got divorced, Dad moved in with his parents. This was their house. Papa—he was a DA—died a while back, and Nana is in an old folks’ home in Belhaven now.” After unhooking the keys from her belt loop and getting the door open, Wilma took a deep breath. “I actually haven’t been here since I was six or seven.”

  They followed her in.

  The inside of the house was a Frankenstein’s monster of old furniture and new renovations. Jameson clearly had started the slow process of updating the house. The front door opened immediately into a giant living room with a fireplace opposite the door, and a long dining table that could easily sit twenty people was to the left of the space. There was an open doorway to the right of the living room, and a set of ajar French doors that led into a kitchen on the left. Amber saw part of a large center island and sliding glass doors that led to a backyard, the view of which was obscured by peach-colored gauzy curtains.

  Amber wished she could feel the energy of a room like a true psychic. At least then she would have a place to start. The place was a bit in disarray—cluttered, rather than messy—but Amber wasn’t sure if that was due to the aftermath of a dinner party that had ended in murder, or the aftermath of the police searching the place. Though ransacking might have been more accurate as far as the Marbleglen police department was concerned.

  “I can take you into the back room where …” Wilma said, then trailed off.

  “Lead the way,” Amber said.

  They headed for the open doorway to the right of the living room and made an immediate left into the hallway. They passed a small bedroom on the right, its ajar door revealing that it was used more for storage than anything else, then entered an office at the end of the hall. Glass-fronted dark cherrywood bookshelves lined the walls to the left. Straight ahead was an expensive-looking desk that was littered with folders, papers, and books. Even more papers and folders littered the ground around it. To the right, a wall of windows that looked out on the neighbor’s house next door.

  And in the center of the room, a large bloodstain discolored the floor.

  Without saying anything, Amber walked further into the room, skirted the stain, and headed for the desk. Beyond it, a long rectangular window revealed a corner of the backyard, where a pair of chairs sat on one side of a small pond, two white-and-orange koi swimming idly. Amber supposed those were Wilma’s responsibility now. Thick curtains were pulled open on the window, their hems pooled on the floor.

  Turning, Amber found that every desk drawer had been pulled open. Even more papers and folders had been rifled through here. Pens from a mesh cup were spilled on the ground. An elephant paperweight lay on its side just under the desk’s chair.

  Back in March, Amber had conducted a time spell to see what had happened to Chloe Deidrick’s mother the night her car had plunged into the icy waters of Lake Lirkaldy. As Amber had conducted that spell, she’d looked at a picture of the lake and held onto a rock from its shore, then did her best to tap into the energy of the place so she could ask it to show her its secrets.

  This time, she believed the energy she needed to tap into was in this very room, where the crime had taken place. There was energy in the elephant paperweight underneath Eric Jameson’s desk, the chair he’d sat in countless times, the bookshelves that had watched him work, and the floor that had soaked up his blood. If anyone or anything knew what had happened to Jameson, it was his own house.

  Amber pulled her spell from her pocket—Wilma’s wide gaze had been focused on the bloodstain on the floor—and then turned to face the window. “Please give me a moment to read the energy of the room. You may see me collapse, but do not be alarmed. This is part of my process.”

  The chief let out a choked sound behind her but tried to turn it into a cough.

  Amber recited the spell then, keeping her voice both soft and controlled, despite the fact that she was wildly nervous to be doing such a spell in front of the chief and a virtual stranger, even if she was doing it with her back to them. Part of her worried she wouldn’t tumble into this memory so much as slam into it—a belly flop into a pool of magic that was sure to sting.

  As the last words of the spell left her lips, she stuffed the spell back into her pocket, then turned and beelined for the blood stain. Her magic had been ignited; she was amazed she’d been able to walk at all, her head was so fuzzy with it. She knelt and placed both hands on the stain on the floor. The energy here from the trauma of the attack—and even a hint of Simon’s energy, too—was so strong, Amber’s magic gave a jolt when her hands made contact with the bloodstained wood. She flinched slightly—or maybe a lot, given Wilma’s worried, though growing distant, “Is she okay?”

  But Amber wasn’t able to answer on her own behalf. Her magic had taken over, washing up over her like a wave. She imagined Jameson, then—the way he’d stood listlessly on the stage in the Marbleglen Community Center during the first joint-festival meeting with the Floral Frenemies. It had been the first and only time she’d been around him in person. She recalled Mayor Sable sarcastically commending Jameson on his ability to be a team player, and the venomous look he’d shot her afterwards. Amber tried to imagine the way he must have looked sitting at the desk behind her. She thought of April 17th.

  Show me what happened here, she told her magic.

  The rattling clang of a drawer closing made her jerk her head to the right. Eric Jameson sat at his desk, searching for something. The world outside the window behind him was growing dark.

  The distant chime of a doorbell made him abandon his search, and he stood, giving the knot of his tie a straightening tug. He was dressed in some combination of casual and formal—a black silken tie, a crisp dark shirt tucked into dark wash jeans, and boat shoes. He grabbed his blazer from where it hung on the back of his office chair and slipped it on as he walked for the door. The bell chimed again.

  “I’m coming!” he called out, pulling open the office door. He muttered something under his breath about hating parties, all the while adjusting the collar of his jacket.

  Amber followed after him down the wood-paneled hallway, around a corner, and into the living room. The massive oak dining table was currently being set by two women in white shirts and black slacks. They didn’t look up as Jameson strode in; he didn’t acknowledge them.

  On the other side of the door stood a very pretty, petite brunette woman. She wore a black-and-white patterned wrap dress and her hair was pinned up in an elegant updo. A shiny black clutch was held in front of her lap, and her lean frame was elongated even further by her equally shiny red heels, which matched her lipstick. The bright light from the porch glittered off the large diamond ring decorating her finger.

  “You’re early, Jane,” Jameson said in greeting.

  “Don’t start,” the woman said, making her way inside without waiting to be invited.

  “Fine,” he said closing the door behind her. “You’re early, Victoria.”

  “You’re in a fine mood this evening,” she said, as she watched the pair of women laying out silverware and glasses for a moment, before turning back to face Jameson. “I know you hate parties, but wasn’t this little soirée your idea?”

  “No,” he grumbled. “Yvette thought it would be good for the optics. This whole thing feels like a PR stunt to give Ricinus and his band of misfits a win so they feel like all their little protests were worth it. But it’s just to keep them distracted from the farm deal. By the time they figure out what’s going on, Cooper will have gone the same way as Woodbury, and it’ll be too late to do anything.”

  Amber was struck by his tone more than his words. Eric Jameson was bitter. It practically poured off him like a cologne.

  Victoria pursed her lips and took a quick couple of steps forward—click-clicking on the hardwood floor—and poked a manicured finger, hard, a
gainst his chest. “You want to keep it down? I don’t know what all is going on here in Marbleglen, but I’m guessing ninety percent of what you just said needs to be kept to yourself.” She discreetly angled her head toward the two food servers. “I honestly can’t tell if you need to drink more or less right now.”

  Jameson swayed on his feet a little. His expression was an uncomfortable mixture of anger and longing. “What do you see in Sullivan, anyhow, Tory? Hm? Were you looking for danger? You needed a lawyer who represents criminals rather than someone who writes parking tickets?”

  Victoria merely stared at him.

  “He’s not even a good lawyer,” Jameson said. “He hasn’t won a case yet, has he? Keeps representing scum and keeps losing. His daddy’s money is gonna run out eventually, then what? Did you just need commitment? I could have married you if that’s what you wanted. You never said you wanted that.”

  She scoffed and took a step back. “I wanted someone with greater goals than being able to drink more whiskey than anyone else before passing out.”

  His nostrils flared. “Oh, I’ve got goals and ambitions now. You just wouldn’t like what I’m doing.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means I’m going to get another drink,” he said, and stalked past her.

  Amber followed after Jameson; the spell had brought her here to see his story, not Victoria’s. She glanced over her shoulder as she walked, though, and noted that Victoria’s expression was furious. She held her clutch tight in both hands, glaring after the man she’d once dated—possibly loved.

  Then someone knocked on the door and startled Victoria out of her staring contest with Jameson’s back. “I guess I’m your bloody butler now!” she called out, plastered on a smile, and pulled open the door. “Hi. You can take those into the kitchen.”

  A man carrying two white cardboard boxes shuffled inside, the contents clicking together as he moved. Bottles of alcohol, Amber guessed.

  Jameson spent a good deal of time in the kitchen even as more guests started to arrive. He was cordial when someone new found him sipping moodily in the corner, where he had a clear view through the double doors that opened into the living-dining room area, where the festivities were largely going on without him.