A Familiar Tail

by Delia James

  “I gotta go.” I scrambled out of the Jeep while trying to dig in my purse for my keys. It was not graceful. “I . . . erm . . . you okay to get back?”

  “No problem,” he said easily. “Are you okay to stay here?”

  “I’ll let you know.” Before he could ask any more questions, I sprinted into the house.

  Alistair was already there, sitting on the desk next to my laptop. “Meow!” he announced, like he was saying Finally!

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” I muttered as I flipped the lid open and opened up a new search. “I’m slow. But I’m here now.” I paused for a second. “Should I get the others over here?” I asked the cat. He turned around three times and sat down with his tail around his paws. “Right,” I said. “Time for that after we know if we’ve found anything.”

  I clicked keys and called up the UrCloud homepage. “Question,” I said to Alistair. “How could Dorothy keep a secret online account off her credit card bills? Answer: She used a free service and a fake name.” Alistair blinked and rubbed his face against the corner of the laptop. “It’s easy to set up a secondary e-mail address,” I told him. “You don’t need ID. You just need a friendly tech-savvy bartender who’ll play along and show you the basics.”

  I clicked on the user ID box and typed: dorothygale.

  “Now. There’s a password box.” I pointed for Alistair’s benefit. “You do not tell anyone your password, because you are security conscious. But you also know somebody might need to find it one day. So you hide it in your house, but you hide it in plain sight on your favorite piece of memorabilia from your favorite movie.”

  And I typed: margarethamilton.

  And I hit Enter. Seconds ticked past. Then the screen flashed INVALID PASSWORD.

  Alistair growled impatiently. I tried to keep breathing.

  “Right, right. Because for a secure password, you need numbers or symbols.”

  I typed: margarethamilton1939.

  Seconds crawled by. I gripped the edge of the desk until my fingers hurt. Alistair came over and head butted my shoulder. I ignored him.

  “Come on,” I said to the computer, and then in case it didn’t get the hint, I added, “Come on, come on.”

  The computer beeped. The screen flickered. I felt my nails bend as I clutched the edge of the desk and leaned forward.

  A list of file names scrolled up the screen, including one that read MA PROPERTY.

  I clicked on that one.

  Dorothy had been busy. Page after page of documents flickered past on the screen: mortgages, leases, purchase agreements.

  The copies. We’d all been so sure they must be on paper, tucked away in the house somewhere. Why? Because Dorothy was an old woman. Because she still kept a checkbook and paper bills and wrote everything down in notebooks. So everybody, me included, had just assumed that these records would still be hard copies too. So we’d all focused on searching the house and ignored cyberspace.

  She’d outfoxed us all. Again.

  I clicked through the documents, scanning them as quickly as I could, until I found a page with a signature on it. There it was, cramped and pointy, and it read: Elizabeth Maitland.

  “Ellis was telling the truth.” I slumped backward. Elizabeth Maitland had been into some kind of shady real estate dealings.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said out loud. “It’s . . . it’s undignified. It’d disgrace the family. It . . .” I stopped. “The family,” I repeated.

  Alistair jumped off the desk and shoved his face in my purse, nosing around. “What? Did I leave a sandwich in there?”

  Alistair’s meow was muffled. I thought about pulling him away. On second thought, I pulled my purse away instead and upended it on the desk. Alistair jumped up and, in the way of all cats, immediately sat on the one piece of paper.

  Realization crept into my mind, slowly. I moved the cat onto my lap and picked up the paper. It was that letter inviting me to tea I’d received from Elizabeth Maitland. I hadn’t even realized it was still in my purse.

  “You’re not serious,” I said to Alistair.

  “Meow,” he answered me, and I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking it too.

  I held the paper up next to the screen and stared. I looked at the elaborate E on the invitation, and the much simpler one on the document on the screen.

  “It’s not the same,” I told the cat. “Somebody’s forged her signature.” I stopped. “Ellis forged her signature.”

  Alistair jumped into my lap and rubbed his head against my shoulder.

  “I should call Kenisha,” I said as I automatically petted his back. “Right now. That’s what I should do first.”

  But I couldn’t help thinking about Elizabeth Maitland in her lovely, empty house on the hill. I thought about family ties and traditions that could tie a person up like iron chains. I thought about kindness, and I thought about what you send out into the world coming back in so many different ways. I thought about how despite everything, Julia, whom I liked and trusted, defended this woman from the accusations that came at her from all kinds of directions.

  I dialed the phone and waited while it rang.

  “Maitland residence,” answered Marisol.

  “Marisol, I need to speak with Mrs. Maitland. It’s urgent.”

  “One moment, please.”

  I heard Marisol put the phone down. Alistair curled around my ankles, trying to reassure me while I waited, yet again. It was a good try, but I was past being reassured. I stared out the window at the summer twilight. I didn’t want to be right. I really didn’t. I understood now why Frank and Julia had been so reluctant to go digging into this mystery. It was nothing at all like you saw on TV. It was just sad and a little scary.

  “Hello?”

  I swallowed my doubts. I had come too far. Like it or not, I had to finish this. “Mrs. Maitland? This is Annabelle Britton.”

  “Is there something I can do for you, Miss Britton?”

  “Mrs. Maitland, I have some . . . difficult news.”

  “Which is?”

  “Somebody’s been trying to frame you, Mrs. Maitland.”

  She paused. I pressed my palm against the desk and forced myself to wait. “Frame me?” she repeated finally.

  I nodded, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “For real estate fraud.”

  There was no answer except the sound of harsh breathing. When she spoke again, her voice was tight. “Are you certain?”

  “Fairly certain.”

  “Was it Dorothy?”

  I swallowed. Of course. She still had that letter, the one Ellis said he’d gotten from Laurie and that was supposed to have been written by Dorothy.

  “I don’t know. It . . .” How did I say this? I closed my eyes. There was no good way. “It might be Ellis.”

  “I see.” The two words were stone-cold.

  “I wanted you to know before . . . before I went to the police.”

  “To cushion the blow?” she said icily. “Well. Thank you for that, I suppose. I am assuming—and it may be a rather large assumption—that you have some proof of what you’re saying. I’d like to see it.”

  “Sure. Can you meet me at the police station?”

  “I cannot,” she snapped. “You will come here.”

  “It really would be better . . .”

  “Miss Britton, you clearly need my assistance with something. You would not be calling if you did not. You would already be talking to the police. I assure you, I will say nothing and do nothing until I have seen evidence of wrongdoing. So, unless you intend to accuse me of a crime you know I did not commit, you will come here, and you will present your evidence.”

  “And then what?”

  “If someone is trying to tarnish my family name, you may be certain, Miss Britton, I will do everything in my power to
make it stop. No matter who is responsible.”

  This I believed. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

  “We will be expecting you.” She paused again. “Anna? I . . . Please don’t tell the others about this. You know who I mean. I . . . If it is as you say, it will all come out soon enough and I would like to preserve some measure of my pride until then.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Maitland,” I said. “I won’t say anything.”

  “Thank you. I’ll make sure the gates are open.”

  I hung up and looked at Alistair. His right ear twitched.

  “Darn right, I lied,” I told him, and hit Kenisha’s number.

  41

  THE GATES TO the Maitlands’ house were standing wide-open when I got there. The summer shadows stretched across the lawn as I climbed out of the Jeep and trotted up to the front door and rang the bell.

  I hitched up the strap on my purse while I waited. I had my backpack slung over my other shoulder. I considered backing away. But I was too late. The door opened.

  It was Elizabeth Maitland.

  “I sent Marisol home,” she told me. “I didn’t want her overhearing our next conversation.”

  That made sense, but it didn’t make me feel any better as I followed her into the sitting room. The house’s silence was so thick, I felt like I was wading through it.

  “Mrs. Maitland,” I said. “I’m very sorry about this. I know it must be . . .”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, thank you. Please, will you show me what you’ve found?”

  I pulled my laptop out of my backpack and opened the file with the papers in it. “Dorothy had these in an online account,” I said. “I compared the signature on them with the one on the note you sent me. They don’t match.”

  Mrs. Maitland stared at the page for a long time. She leaned in and touched the screen, almost like she thought she could wipe away what she saw.

  “Yes,” she murmured. “Yes. Now, the question before us is whether this is Ellis’s work, or Dorothy’s.”

  Her calm was nothing short of astounding. I’d have been shouting and pacing. But then, I hadn’t been raised in the house on the hill and trained since birth to be polite and perfect, no matter what the circumstances—even if I was trying to find out whether it was my son or my old friend who had betrayed me.

  “I’m really . . .”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Maitland waved her hand. “You are sorry. You’ve said so. It is neither here nor there. My son has an office upstairs. I think if we go there, we will find what we need to clear this last question up fairly quickly.” She stood, and I stood and followed her.

  The main staircase was graceful, broad and curving. You could picture women in silken gowns sweeping down it, ready to climb into their waiting carriages for the harvest ball. Mrs. Maitland did not sweep. She climbed slowly, her back straight, her hand resting lightly on the railing. Even on her way to find out if her son had tried to frame her for murder, she was not going to sacrifice a single shred of dignity. There was a special kind of steel in that attitude, and I couldn’t help admiring it.

  Until I got to the top of the stair, and the Vibe hit.

  Anger. Anger like a tidal wave. Like a wildfire. I staggered from the pain of it. From the fear of it, because there was fear, too, a tsunami’s worth of panic.

  “What is it, Anna?” asked Mrs. Maitland, but her voice seemed to be coming from a long, long way away. “Is something wrong?”

  “Bad,” I croaked. I was leaning against the wall. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t focus my eyes. “Something bad happened here. Right here.” Sad, sick, sorry, angry, angry, angry. My head was swimming. I was going to pass out. Hands. There were hands on my shoulders, pushing me . . . I was falling.

  No. Not me. Somebody else. I tried to breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I had no protection, no shelter, no friends to help.

  “I thought so,” Mrs. Maitland was saying. “Ellis. I am severely disappointed.”

  “When have you ever been anything else, Mother?”

  I wheeled around and nearly toppled over. Strong hands caught me and held me steady, just like that other time, on the other staircase, where I’d felt Dorothy die.

  Except that time I’d been held by a friend. Frank Hawthorne. But Frank wasn’t here. This time, Ellis Maitland’s tanned and perfect face swam in front of my vision.

  “You better sit down, Anna,” he said. “Here. Put your head between your knees.” He pressed down on the back of my neck too hard, forcing me to double over. “Just breathe.”

  “I can’t breathe . . . I can’t . . .” He had doubled me over too sharply. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. “I can’t . . .”

  He pressed down harder. “Yes, you can, and you just won’t stop, will you? And that, Anna Britton, is your problem.”

  The world closed in around me and was gone.

  • • •

  I WOKE UP slowly and painfully. I was sprawled on my side on bare floorboards in a bare brick room. There was a skylight and some windows letting in just enough light for me to see. I pushed myself upright. My backpack was nowhere in sight, but my purse was on the floor beside me, half its contents scattered across the floor. I crawled over to it and in a fine display of priorities started scooping my stuff back in. It didn’t take long to see that my phone was missing. The house keys were there, but my car keys weren’t. Neither was the wand. Ellis might not be able to work magic, but he knew enough to take that away.

  “Okay.” I breathed deep. “Okay.” Slowly, I pushed myself to my feet. I stayed steady. “Okay, that’s something.”

  The windows were old and multipaned and not made to open. Wherever this was, it was right on the river. Instead of overlooking some conveniently busy sidewalk, I looked over the sparkling silver span of the Piscataqua.

  I made myself turn around and get a better look at my surroundings. There was one door, splintered and old. I tried the handle, just for the heck of it. It was, of course, locked. I leaned my forehead against it. Now what? Break a window and shout for help? Somebody might hear.

  “Merow?”

  I looked down. Alistair was rubbing against my shins. “Merow?”

  “Oh, my God. Alistair!” I swept him up in my arms and hugged him until he squirmed in protest. “I’ve never been so glad to see anybody in my life!”

  Had I ever doubted the magic? I was done with that.

  “Merow!” Alistair slid out of my arms and padded over to the door. “Mrp?” he inquired.

  “It’s locked. I can’t get out. Can you open it?”

  Alistair scrabbled at the wood for a minute and favored it with a particularly baleful cat glower, but nothing happened. He meowed again and circled around my ankles. I understood. I also bit my lip. This was beyond what my familiar could handle on his own. I had to do something. But what? Could I send Alistair to get Julia? The coven was all gathered in Midnight Reads, waiting to hear from me. I’d told Kenisha about the hidden account so she could use it if anything . . . went wrong.

  She had not been happy. She’d wanted to come along. I’d thought it would be better if I went on my own, because if it turned out that Elizabeth wasn’t involved, I wanted her to keep trusting me and to try to talk her into coming forward on her own. Kenisha agreed to my plan in the end, but it was a near thing.

  But I hadn’t counted on a kidnapping. It would take time for Alistair to get to the coven, and time for them to understand him, and more time for them to find me, even with Kenisha on the job. And . . . I swallowed hard. And there was no guarantee he’d get to them. It must have been Elizabeth who kept Alistair from finding Julia and the others the night Dorothy died. She had interfered to protect her son and her family name that night, just like she’d done when I went to the house tonight.

  “Merow!” Alistair batted at my purse. “Meow!”

 
“The phone’s not there,” I told him. “Neither’s the wand.” I pressed my hand against my stomach and swallowed hard, suddenly more than a little bit seasick.

  I rattled the doorknob again. When it didn’t move, I squatted down until I was eye level with it. It was a match for the building, old and plain. It felt loose, but I knew nothing about picking this kind of lock. But maybe I could jigger the latch. Or . . . I glanced at the edge. The hinges were on my side. Maybe I could unscrew them somehow?

  I wished my dad were here, or one of my brothers. They always had a Swiss Army knife or a multitool with them. Suddenly my nail file seemed a little pathetic.

  “What’s the point of being a witch if you can’t blast a door down?” I muttered as I pulled the file out. “Or turn Ellis Maitland into a frog? He’d make a great frog. Or maybe a toad. Definite toad potential there. Julia said no toads, but maybe she just wasn’t trying hard enough . . . Yeah, keep talking, Anna. That’ll make it all better.”

  “Merow!” Alistair bounded around in a circle.

  “What? You pick now to chase your tail?” Hysteria was bubbling way too close to the surface.

  Alistair wasn’t listening. He just turned in another circle. And another.

  A circle. He was drawing a circle. He was reminding me I was a witch. A baby witch, but a witch all the same. Maybe I couldn’t blast the door down or turn anything into a toad, but I had magic. A plan formed, strange and slow, stacked together from ideas my brain was not used to considering possible.

  I needed to cast a circle.

  I upended my purse again, spilling the contents across the warped floorboards. I grabbed the pen and scratched a circle to stand in.

  “Okay. Directions. Right, Alistair? I need directions. Where’s south?”

  “Merow.” Alistair plumped down so his back was to the window.

  Okay. I guess that was south. Which meant left was east and right was west, and the door faced north.

  “Okay. Directions. Check. Now, elements. Right?”

  “Merow,” agreed Alistair.

  I needed metal to represent earth. That was easy. I laid down my ring of house keys. What did I have for water? I picked up the miniature bottle of mouthwash I carried in case of garlic. It was at least liquid, and kind of blue. Fire next. There was an LED light in my key chain. I separated it from the key ring and put it on south. What about air? I grabbed the pen again and sketched a cloud with a set of puffed cheeks like a cartoon wind on the floor.