He completely missed my sarcasm in his excitement. “That’s it exactly! You know he’ll want to hit the bank. Emptying the safe would be the ultimate magical robber challenge. I should ward the bank.
I’ll do it tonight, while he’s still probably recovering from last night’s activities and before he hits again. If I’m tired from what little I did, I’m sure he’s exhausted from making all those windows disappear.”
“Looks like another night without much sleep for us.” And it looked like we’d be spending more time alone together after dark. That was a big bonus.
Since we had our work out of the way, I would have thought we had the rest of the day after we finished lunch free for sightseeing or even just spending time together and really catching up, but Owen wanted to go back to town and check out the bank and surrounding area. I hoped that meant he wanted to get his work taken care of so he could focus on me, but I was afraid he just wanted to get back to New York.
We got home in plenty of time to help Mom prepare the huge feast. She’d already fried chicken, had chicken and dumplings stewing, and there was a roast in the oven. She set us to work snapping beans while she made a pie. Granny came over an hour early with a tuna salad. “Because it’s healthy to have salad with your meal,” she said, and Mom shot us a pleading look.
“Granny, Owen was fascinated with some of the local history. You’ve lived here a long time. I’m sure you have stories,” I said, moving her out of the kitchen and into the living room, where she regaled him with tales I was sure were mostly fictional, but still interesting, or would have been if I hadn’t heard them dozens of times. They were new to Owen, though, and he seemed to be paying attention, even taking mental notes whenever she lapsed into Lucky Charms land and started talking about things like the wee folk. He seemed determined not to let himself go off duty.
Then the rest of the clan started arriving, and the usual Chandler family chaos ensued. Beth and Teddy got there first. Beth greeted Owen with a kiss on the cheek, which momentarily flustered him.
“How are you enjoying your visit?” she asked him.
“I really like Texas,” he said. “I’m enjoying the open spaces.”
“Very diplomatic,” she said with a laugh. “I guess the family can be a little overwhelming. I find them overwhelming, and I went to school with Teddy and Katie, so they weren’t strangers to me.”
That got him even more flustered. “That’s—that’s not what I meant…”
She turned to me. “Katie, he really is the cutest thing. I think I approve.” The only thing that saved Owen from dying of embarrassment on the spot was Lucy stretching her arms out toward him and whimpering. She practically wiggled her way out of her mother’s arms, and Owen caught her just in time. “Well, will you look at that,” Beth said, putting her hands on her hips as Lucy contentedly sighed and snuggled against his shoulder. “Katie, sweetie, you may have competition here for your man. Owen, you don’t have to hold her. I’ll take her back.”
“No, this is okay, for a while, I guess.” He looked a little lost, like he wasn’t quite sure what to do.
Teddy clapped him on the back. “I may give my sister credit for thinking for herself, but my daughter doesn’t yet have much life experience, so I’ll be watching you, buddy.”
Beth slipped a burp cloth between Lucy and Owen’s shirt. “She’s teething, so she drools,” she explained. “Let me know when you get tired of holding her, or hand her off to Katie.” Then she darted off to help in the kitchen.
“You do know that’s going to set my mother off,” I said to him. “I’ll never hear the end of how much she wants more grandchildren, and how you seem to be very good with babies.”
“This may be the first baby I’ve ever touched.”
“That would be a dangerous thing to say around my mother. She’ll say you’re a natural. I bet it has something to do with the way you are with animals.”
“Yes, because babies and dragons are so much alike,” he said, the sarcasm obvious in his voice.
“You really haven’t spent much time around babies, have you? They’re basically the same as dragons, only smaller, without the wings, and with a different skin color.”
“She smells better.”
“Not all the time.”
It was only when I looked up as Frank, Molly, and their three kids showed up that I noticed my grandmother looking at us oddly. We’d been talking softly, and I was sure she was practically deaf, but the look on her face told me she’d heard the whole conversation.
Once everyone had arrived and we sat down to eat, the meal progressed without major disasters.
Everyone was polite to Owen, and they didn’t ask too many embarrassing personal questions about him or about the nature of our relationship. As the meal went on, I quit stressing about what to say about him and about us.
But I shouldn’t have let myself relax. Mom was offering seconds when Granny asked, “So, how much time do you spend with dragons up in New York? I didn’t know they were still around. You’d think it would make the news if they were running free up there.”
Owen looked completely blank, and I stifled a gasp as he looked to me and two pink spots formed on his cheeks. “Mother!” Mom snapped, and I then noticed that everyone was looking at Granny instead of at us. We were lucky she was known for saying crazy things like that, or we would have been busted.
“He was talking about dragons,” Granny insisted.
“Mama, you know your hearing isn’t so great, so it’s easy for you to mishear things. Now, if you’d let me take you to get a hearing aid, you wouldn’t have these problems.”
“I don’t need a hearing aid. My hearing is perfectly fine. He’s got magic in him, so it’s natural for him to talk about dragons.” She turned to face Owen. “My da used to tell me stories about dragons, but he said they were only in the old country.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “Actually, Katie and I were talking about dragons, so you did hear correctly. But we were being figurative. There were some people at work we called the dragons. It was kind of a joke. I’m sorry if we alarmed you.” He then gave her a smile guaranteed to melt a woman’s heart, no matter how old or young she was. It was a good thing he was oblivious to that particular power or he could have been truly dangerous if he was ever tempted to use it for evil.
“You know, though, New York might be the one place where dragons could live without anyone noticing. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there were whole nests of them living in the sewers and subway tunnels. There’s no telling what’s down there.”
“Forget about the subway tunnels,” I threw in, “there’s one who lived downstairs from us. She was a nightmare.” Everyone at the table laughed, but Granny just stared at Owen. Her eyes still measured him shrewdly, but I could tell he’d won an ally by deflecting the conversation away from her hearing problems or mental health. She’d still be watching him, but she wouldn’t try to expose him to Mom and Dad. I was rather impressed with him, myself.
After dinner, he got stuck with my dad and brothers in the living room while the women cleaned up. I knew it was a sexist division of labor, but ever since Dean had broken one of Mom’s good china plates, she wouldn’t let the men wash dishes. I always suspected that Dean had done that on purpose.
Owen offered to help, but he was shooed away as company. I thought I should have been allowed to stay with him, since he was my guest, but I got drafted by the kitchen crew. I figured if he got into trouble with my dad and brothers, he could always blow something up as a diversion. With Granny on his side, he was probably safe anyway.
Mom and Molly put away the food, Beth washed the dishes, and Sherri and I dried them. Actually, I dried them and Sherri leaned against the counter. She shoved her hair back with one hand, then scratched her neck, and then surprised me by reaching up to open a cabinet so I could put a dish away. Molly, passing by, paused and said, “Wow! Look at that!” Only then did I notice the bracelet on She
rri’s wrist.
“Oh, this little thing?” she said with a laugh as she gave her wrist a shake. It wasn’t dripping with diamonds, but it was still a nice piece of jewelry, maybe even real gold, with some gemstones set into the charms. I did the payroll for the store, so I knew exactly how much money Dean and Sherri made, and I doubted it was enough for them to afford jewelry like that on top of their expensive car and house payments.
“Present from Dean, or did you treat yourself?” Molly asked.
Sherri gave a canary-stuffed-cat smile. “I’m not telling.”
“I’m guessing the former, judging by the, um, healthy glow you two had when you got here,” I said.
Sherri snapped me on the shoulder with a dish towel. “Oh, you! Don’t be naughty. How do you know that getting this for myself didn’t make me feel all sexy?”
I tried to study her face without looking like I was staring so I could tell whether or not she was telling the truth. Unfortunately, she could convince herself that anything she wanted to believe was the truth, and therefore when she said it, she didn’t think it was a lie. I was fairly certain she could beat any polygraph test.
The timing of her getting new jewelry clearly out of her price range the day after someone had robbed the jewelry store was awfully suspicious. Maybe Sherri really was a witch, in more ways than one, and she was our suspect. Of course, it was equally likely that the culprit was now selling jewelry and other stolen items out of the trunk of his car, and that was how she was able to afford it.
“You must have bought that at Murphy’s,” Beth said, drying her hands and leaning over to get a good look. “I think I saw something like that there the other day when I went in to get my watch battery replaced.”
Sherri laughed for no apparent reason and tossed her head back. I thought she looked uncomfortable, but I couldn’t tell if it was the discomfort from having stolen it and her sister-in-law recognizing the source or from having it recognized as stolen property she’d purchased illegally. Wearing stolen jewelry in a small town wasn’t the brightest idea. It was too likely that everyone would know exactly where it came from.
After a while, she stammered, “Well, I mean, uh, it’s really not that unique. They probably mass produce these in China and ship them over by the boatload.”
“What are you girls looking at?” Mom asked, joining us.
Molly grabbed Sherri’s wrist and held it out for Mom. “We were just admiring Sherri’s new jewelry,”
she said.
“Oh, that is nice. I think that’s the one I saw in Murphy’s. I even thought about what a nice birthday gift it would make for you. But I guess I’ll have to think of something else, now that you already have it. Dean and I must share the same taste.”
Sherri held out her other arm and shook it. “I have two wrists!”
Beth turned back to the sink and plunged her hands into the hot water, then began scrubbing furiously. Molly drifted away, and I fought to keep my mouth shut. I had to struggle to keep up with Beth’s increased washing pace, but I didn’t mind because I couldn’t wait to get to Owen and tell him what I’d discovered.
When I finally escaped from the kitchen, I was surprised to see Owen looking perfectly at ease. He and Teddy were chatting, and while they shared a similar mind-set, I couldn’t imagine what they had in common to talk about. There was some chemistry involved in magical potions, but there weren’t too many other crossovers between Teddy’s agricultural work and Owen’s magic. I got close enough to overhear and found that they were talking about books. They both liked the same spy thrillers and mysteries and were exchanging reading suggestions.
I loved my family, but I wanted more than anything for them to go away—and soon. Granny left first, since she didn’t like to drive at night. Then Molly and Frank left to get their kids to bed, and Teddy and Beth weren’t far behind them, sneaking out with a still-sleeping Lucy before she could wake up and demand to be held by her new hero.
You could have knocked me over with a feather when, as she and Dean were saying their good-byes, Sherri said, “You two should come over for Sunday lunch tomorrow. We barely got to chat at all with so many people here tonight.” She was supposedly talking to me, but she didn’t take her eyes off Owen when she talked.
Based on prior experience, I knew she probably wanted a chance to get her hooks into Owen, but I couldn’t be bothered to stir up any jealousy. Even if she really was a witch of the magical persuasion, I doubted she could overpower Owen. And if she was the other kind of witch, she was so far from his type I doubted he even noticed she was a woman. Owen’s obliviousness had gotten us in trouble in the past, when someone managed to throw herself at him without him noticing her enough to even reject her and she turned against the entire company in order to get revenge.
“We’d love to,” I said, ignoring the dismay on Owen’s face. It would be the perfect opportunity to see if there was any other magically stolen loot in their possession. I tried to give him a significant look to show him I knew what I was doing.
“Then how about we see you at twelve-thirty? Don’t bother bringing anything. I’ve got it all taken care of.”
When the house was finally empty of everyone but us, Mom, and Dad, I suggested to Owen that we go sit out on the porch swing and enjoy the lovely evening. As soon as I was certain we weren’t being spied upon—at least not closely enough to be overheard—I shared my conclusions. “I have a new suspect for us,” I said.
“One of your family?”
“Only indirectly. Sherri was wearing a new bracelet tonight, one Beth remembered having seen in the jewelry store on the square. Sherri seemed uncomfortable and was really vague about how she got it. I know she and Dean can’t usually afford stuff like that.”
“You think she’s our rogue wizard?”
“Either that, or she knows who it is because she’s buying hot goods from him at a discount.”
“So that’s why you accepted the invitation.”
“Exactly. Normally, I’d avoid it like the plague, but we might be able to see what else they have in their house, and you might be able to tell if there’s any magic going on. I don’t suppose there’d be any way to expose her as the thief without revealing the magical angle, huh?”
“It might be difficult.”
“Rats. I know it sounds awful of me, but I’d have loved to convince Mom that she didn’t hang the moon. Frank and Teddy have such great wives, and I’m glad to think of them as sisters, but I don’t know what Dean was thinking. He wasn’t thinking with his brains, that’s for sure.”
“She’s not even that attractive. She just looks cheap.”
I desperately wanted to hug him for that. I’d forgotten where I’d left off on the list of things I loved about him, but that needed to go on the list. Too bad a hug would be totally inappropriate for the strictly business relationship he seemed to be trying to maintain.
“I guess we rig the bank tonight after everyone else is asleep. How will we make it so that the customers and employees can still get in and out but our wizard can’t?”
“I can set it to only block people with a certain magical level. Someone who can actually work magic has to be beyond a particular threshold. If we hear reports of people being unable to get in the bank, we’ll know there’s more magic in this town than we realized. But if I’m right, he’ll try to hit the bank tomorrow night, so we’ll have everything taken care of before customers become an issue.”
“I take it we’re crawling out the windows again tonight.”
“I’ll have to get some things from my case first. I really hope your parents are heavy sleepers.”
We went back inside and made a big show of heading off to bed. Once I was safely in my room for the night, I changed into black jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt, made a dummy out of pillows so that my bed looked occupied, and pulled Owen’s case out from under my bed. Then I read by flashlight until shortly after midnight, when Owen tapped on my window.
He
was also dressed in black. I moved to hand him the case, but he shook his head and crawled in through the window. “I don’t need the whole thing.” He knelt by the case, opened it, then dug around in it, putting various items into a black backpack that came from inside the case. I tried to get a look inside the case, but it was too dark to see much, and the magical light he used to illuminate his work was angled the wrong way to give me a good look.
After he had everything he needed, he relocked the case and shoved it back under the bed. Then we made our way out the window and down off the porch roof. We parked behind the Dairy Queen and walked the rest of the way to the bank, which was a block off the town square. It was a solid Art Deco building that must have gone up just in time for the banks to fail at the start of the Depression. The building had proved far sturdier than the institution, as it was still in use by a branch of a national conglomerate. Sam waited for us in front of the bank.
“Do you think you can manage a veil long enough for me to get this done?” Owen asked him. “I don’t want us accidentally fingered as suspects.”
“Got it covered, kiddo. I’m not sure it’ll be strong enough to block out our local wizard, but the cops on patrol won’t spot any suspicious activity. Just make it snappy. There’s not a lot of power to draw on around here. I spent a few hours on a church today, which helped, but it’s not as good as being able to tap into a real power source.”
“Is a church a good source of power then?” I couldn’t resist asking. “If it is, this town may be more powerful than you think. We have a church on almost every corner.”
“That’s gargoyle-specific, doll, only ’cause we was created to guard churches in the first place. Most of your churches here don’t have much power, since they weren’t built with gargoyles in mind. A big oversight, if you ask me.”
Owen was already at work, pulling things out of his bag and placing them around the bank’s front entrance. “Is there a back door?” he asked as he worked.
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