“Dinner! Oh, man. I got so into cleaning that I didn’t make anything,” I said.
“It’s fine,” Thorn replied. “I’m going to order a pizza and take a shower. I promise we’ll talk about everything.”
I wanted to push for information, but Thorn seemed like he needed some time to unwind. I also didn’t notice until he said he needed a shower that he was kind of stinky.
After he undressed, I put his uniform in the wash and tended to Laney. She woke up shortly after Thorn got home, and I used the time he was showering to get her a bottle and diaper change.
The pizza arrived, and I tipped the driver. He handed me the pizza, breadsticks, and a manila envelope. “Coupons?” I asked.
“Yeah, coupons,” the obviously oblivious and unconcerned teenager said with a shrug. “Guess it’s a thing we’re doing now.”
He left and I set the envelope aside. It felt like a cozy night by the fire kind of evening, so I put the pizza and breadsticks down on the coffee table and set Laney’s bouncer up on the floor between the sofa and the fireplace.
“Beer or wine?” I called up to Thorn when I heard him leave the bathroom and walk around our bedroom.
“Beer, if you don’t mind,” he called back down.
I retrieved a beer from the fridge for Thorn and debated about whether I wanted a glass of wine. On one hand, wine and pizza did go together nicely, but on the other, what if something happened to Laney? In the end, I was too nervous about potential emergencies and both of us drinking. So, I grabbed myself a Coke.
“No wine?” Thorn asked. He was coming down the stairs while I put our drinks on the coffee table with the food.
“No, Coke’s good for me tonight,” I said. “Let me grab some napkins and we’re ready to roll.”
“I’ll grab the napkins,” Thorn said. “Please sit down and rest.”
“You worked all day,” I protested.
“And so did you,” Thorn said. “Not at the shop, though. Do I even want to ask what you were doing out at Samara Delarosa’s house?”
“I went to talk to Mercy Cullen at her work today,” I said as we sat down on the sofa. “She said Samara kept a chest full of secrets there, and I couldn’t resist. Mercy didn’t know why her name was in Samara’s grimoire with a skull drawn next to it, but I’d hoped to find answers at Samara’s place.”
“Okay, wait,” Thorn said. “Samara’s grimoire? Where did you get that? And also, Mercy Cullen was dead at Samara’s house, so how did you talk to her at her job?”
“She wasn’t dead, though,” I protested. “She was hurt very badly, but she wasn’t dead.”
“Kinsley, she was,” Thorn said. “She was as dead as a doornail and had been since sometime last night.”
I could feel the color drain from my face. “Then what was that?” I asked more as a rhetorical question. “She came to life. She was going to go after Laney, but I had her locked securely in the car.”
“That’s more your department than mine,” Thorn said, but his voice was soft. He took my hand and squeezed. “And the grimoire?”
“Stole it from Samara’s house the day you found me and Dad there,” I said and held my breath in anticipation of his inevitable displeasure.
“You stole it from a potential crime scene,” he said, but his tone was still gentle, and his hand still holding mine.
“I did,” I said.
“Do you want to start with pepperoni or Hawaiian?” he asked before opening the pizza boxes.
“Wait? You’re not going to get mad?” I asked. “You don’t have anything to say?”
“What would I say?” he asked. “My department isn’t going to treat that grimoire as actual evidence. No one would take it seriously enough because they won’t understand its meaning or significance. We’ve got little chance of solving this thing, so what can I do? I’m trying to stay out of your way and keep my deputies clear too.”
“You’re not going to get mad at me for taking Laney?” I asked.
“Should I?” Thorn returned.
“I’m safer when she’s with me,” I said.
“I gathered that,” Thorn said.
“But you’re not mad because you think I’m putting her in danger?” I asked.
“I think that’s more your feeling than mine,” he said. “If you’re safer with her, then she’s safer with you. Plus, whoever killed Samara isn’t just in one particular location. Heck, they’ve been to Lilith’s and I think they’ve been here. I may only be a small-town cop, but I know enough to know that you take a risk every time you step out your front door. However, the criminals are responsible for their crimes, not you. I’m not going to wrap you in bubble wrap and lock you away here. So, do you want to start with pepperoni or Hawaiian?”
“Pepperoni,” I said.
“I want ham,” Meri pipped in.
“You don’t eat pizza, cat,” Thorn retorted.
“Whatever,” was Meri’s reply.
He got some ham.
Chapter Eleven
It was a lovely night, so Thorn took Laney out for a stroller ride. I would have gone with them, but fatigue was pulling at me like quicksand.
I’d spent too much energy deep cleaning the kitchen, and I desperately needed rest. At least I felt like I could finally get some. A few days before, I was so tired but also constantly wired.
Actual danger seemed to be the thing that did it for me. Instead of all of the imaginary things that could go wrong, I had something to focus on. It did wonders for my mental health.
Since I wasn’t going along, Thorn took the jogging stroller. He didn’t get to run every morning anymore because he’d get up with Laney and let me sleep a few extra minutes.
I appreciated it, but I could tell he was itching to run. “See, it’s a good thing you’re going without me. If you ever catch me running, you’d better look behind me for a bear,” I said on his way out the door.
As much as I wanted a hot shower and to collapse into bed, I needed to put the leftovers away first. I combined the slices into one box, and put it in the fridge. The other box went into the garbage bin, and I was almost ready to go upstairs.
But that envelope of coupons was still on the coffee table. The pizza place had done coupons before, but it had been a colorful, glossy advertisement they taped to the box.
Anxiety prickled the back of my brain. Why would they put coupons in a manila envelope?
I grabbed the envelope off the coffee table and opened it. Inside was a sheet of white paper and not one coupon.
It was a letter.
Dear Meddling Witch,
I’d say that I hope this letter finds you well, but that would be a lie. What I do hope is that you understand what this means.
I can get to you.
I folded up the paper, put it back in the envelope, and waited by the front door for Thorn to return.
“What is it?” Meri asked when he noticed me still standing there after five minutes.
He’d been asleep on the hearth and hadn’t asked me what the letter was about. I wondered if it was because he was drowsy or because Thorn hadn’t taken him along on the jog.
I told him what the letter said, and he joined me by the door. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t go with them,” Meri groused. “What is he thinking going out jogging in the dark when there is a maniac on the loose?”
I shot him a look.
“You should call him,” Meri said. “Maybe he’ll run back faster.”
“I don’t want to panic him,” I said. “I’m sure it’s fine. The letter has to be to mess with me. Otherwise, why have it delivered with the pizza? Why not just leave it on the porch? Or knock on the door and hand it to me?”
“Dude, I don’t know,” Meri said. “Maybe you’ve just got the world’s dumbest stalker.”
Thorn was gone for around twenty minutes, during which time I took the letter out of the envelope and reread it several times. What bothered me the most was why they had sent it with the
pizza? It didn’t make any sense to go through all of that trouble when they could have just left it on the porch or on the windshield of my car.
Why leave another witness?
A witness.
I needed to talk to that kid and find out who gave him the envelope. Obviously, it wasn’t coupons and he didn’t get it from the pizza place, so he’d seen the person.
Thorn came back through the front door and practically made me jump out of my skin. “What? What is it?”
I handed him the letter. “It came with the pizza,” I said. “The delivery driver said it was coupons, but obviously it’s not.”
“I’m going to go ask him about this,” Thorn said. “I want you to come with me. You guys can stay in the car while I go into the restaurant and speak to the kid.”
“You can’t, Thorn,” I replied. “It says I’m a witch.”
“It could just be a derogatory slur. Certainly, doesn’t prove you’re a witch,” he said. “Besides, the veil still works at least somewhat, right?”
He was referring to the veil of magic that kept the nonmagical residents of Coventry from seeing the paranormal things going on around them. It was still partially intact, so Thorn was right. The kid would never suspect that I was really a witch.
The trip to the pizza place was a bust other than the manager felt bad and gave Thorn a couple of actual coupons for free pizza. I sat in the car with Meri and Laney while Thorn went inside and talked to the delivery kid first followed by the manager.
Apparently, the kid had no idea who gave him the envelope because nobody really gave it to him. There was a staging counter where they got their deliveries ready, and when he picked up the pizzas to bring to our house, the envelope was on top of them. When I’d asked if they were coupons, the kid didn’t so much as lie as he just didn’t care enough to even think about it. I said they were coupons, and he just wanted to get to the next delivery.
The manager took Thorn in the back to review security footage, but the camera that watched that part of the store was over the entry door. The man who left the envelope was wearing a black hoodie. He came into the pizza place, waited until one of the workers called out our order, reached over the counter and put the envelope on our stack of pizzas, and then left without showing his face to the camera.
“How did he know that we were ordering pizza from there?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Thorn said. “I wonder if security cameras would work at our house now that the magic has chilled out.”
You would have thought that we’d have security cameras at Hangman’s House, but every time Thorn tried, and he’d been trying since we were dating, the magical energy around the house would fry them.
“You could try,” I said. “Do you want me to go to the store tomorrow and get some?”
“That would be great,” he said and kissed my knuckles.
The next day, I did exactly as I promised. I went to the electronics store in the city and got enough security cameras to watch the entire exterior of the house, the garage, and the yard.
Thorn had wanted to install them himself, but I was bored. So, I put Laney in her stroller, got a ladder, and spent the rest of the day attaching them in the suggested locations included in the directions.
Once they were installed, I set up the app on my phone and laptop, and started looking at all the feeds. When I was satisfied that I’d done it all correctly, I sent the link for the app and our camera feeds to Thorn’s phone.
It meant that we could both watch the cameras from inside the house or anywhere using our phones. After a few hours, I checked them again, and they still worked.
Since I was fairly certain that my magic, and the house’s powers, weren’t going to kill the cameras, I called my dad.
“I got some security cameras to actually work,” I said. “The reduction in magic means they don’t die. I’ve had mine installed for a while, and they are still going strong.”
Relieved at the news, my father disconnected so he could go into the city and get cameras for his house and Lilith’s as well. Pretty soon, we’d be able to surveil our homes and maybe catch the stalker.
Thorn checked all of the camera feeds and watched the footage from the day as soon as he got home. We had leftover pizza for dinner, so he sat at the kitchen table and reviewed all of the footage while eating a couple of slices and having a beer.
“Maybe he was around and saw you installing these,” he said. “It could be enough.”
Enough to keep the creep away is what he meant. I doubted it because the stalker had already proved they could get to me without stepping foot on our property, but it did make me feel a little safer at home.
What would be even better is if I could figure out how to fix whatever was wrong with magic. I still thought the two might be related, so the best thing to do was keep pushing forward on finding Samara’s killer.
Chapter Twelve
The morning of Mercy’s funeral, Thorn went off to work, and I got dressed in my funeral dress. It was considered customary for me to attend the funerals of witches in Coventry, so I didn’t even need an excuse to go. Though I did not attend them all, no one would question my presence.
I talked to my mom that morning, and while she was still staying at Lilith’s house, she and my father were making plans for her to move back home. Lilith had been fine since the day I found Mercy on Samara’s porch, and she hadn’t shown any signs of relapse. She was also itching to get everyone out of her house and had already sent Amelda away.
Laney had been a bit restless that morning. She’d actually cried for a couple of minutes when I’d started to do my makeup. It startled me so much that I nearly called an ambulance. I mean, she’d barely cried since we brought her home. A little fussing now and then that was easily soothed by a bottle or a cuddle, but full-on crying was a strange event.
Fortunately, Meri told me how stupid I was being, and I did not actually call an ambulance because my baby was crying. I gave her a bottle, changed her diaper, and then rocked her to sleep.
In fact, she still snoozed away when I put her in the car to drive to the cemetery. It must have been an exhausting event for her as well, and I nearly backed out of going to the funeral. It would have meant that my mother needed to go in my place, though, and I knew she didn’t want to leave Lilith. And for whatever reason, Lilith hadn’t wanted to go to Mercy’s service.
I thought that was a little strange. It was a gray day, and the clouds were fat with rain. You would have thought that Lilith would jump at the chance to spend a gloomy, wet morning at the cemetery.
“I think she’s still tired,” Mom said. “She wants us to believe she’s back to one hundred percent so we’ll leave her alone, but Lilith definitely needs more rest.”
“I understand,” I said. And I did. If not for the relative quiet of the past couple of days, I wouldn’t have felt much like attending the funeral either.
That morning, I’d had a huge breakfast and three cups of coffee to prepare. I was shocked when my stomach was a little bloated and I had some trouble zipping up my dress. I just patted my stomach with a laugh and tugged harder. Would I get all fat and sassy if I didn’t have magic to keep me thin?
I was not going to diet. Nope. Not happening. Thorn would just have to love my big butt.
“Why are you laughing?” Meri asked and I realized I’d been chuckling at my own thoughts.
At that point, we were driving to the graveyard, and I was lost in thought about food. That happened to me a lot.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “I’m just thinking about getting fat.”
“Why is that funny?” Meri asked. He licked his little paw and ran it over his ear.
“It just is,” I said.
“We’ll see if you can keep a husband then,” he snarked.
“You really think Thorn is that shallow?” I asked.
“Whatever,” Meri said.
After that, he hopped into the back and shared the car seat with La
ney. He seemed to like her company better than mine most of the time which was hilarious considering he hadn’t wanted a baby around.
I got to the cemetery early because I wanted to watch people before and after the service. That and I was itching to get out of the house.
Given that my family and Coven were sort of wrapped up in the mystery surrounding Mercy’s and Samara’s deaths, no one else from my family would be there. It meant I probably wouldn’t have anyone to talk to, but people watching was fine by me.
Haunted Hex (Familiar Kitten Mysteries Book 10) Page 9
