Midlife Ghost Hunter: A Paranormal Women's Fiction (The Forty Proof Series Book 4)

by Shannon Mayer

  “It’s been disturbed and the cross taken.”

  15

  Eammon could not have dropped a bigger bomb on me if he’d tried. Robert and I had been so careful to keep the cross hidden. Hence the ruse of burying a fake cross under Evangeline’s grave.

  The real fairy cross was buried under the oak tree in my gran’s front yard, and I’d thought only Robert and I knew about it. Who had seen us? Who had figured it out?

  “Aye, that grave has been disturbed. I did see you bury it there, and said nothing, but it’s been dug up,” Eammon said.

  Grave. He said grave, not oak tree.

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

  “That’s it? You don’t be more worried? I’d have thought . . .” He paused and then sucked in a sharp breath. “Ah, you be a smart one, just like Celia. That ain’t where it is? A second burying spot was it? Somewhere else. A red herring!”

  I didn’t answer his question or confirm that he was right. “Thanks, Eammon, I should go . . .”

  “One more thing,” he said. “I hate to even tell you, knowing that you’re already in deep shit, but it has to be said. What is happening here is a bad reflection on us all.”

  I looked at Crash, who shook his head, his eyes narrowed. No idea, he mouthed.

  “Tell me,” I said. I mean, at this point how bad could it be?

  Bad. Really, really bad.

  “Your neighbor’s kid, the little girl? She went missing, but they only just be realizing it now. When her aunt and uncle came to pick her up, she was already gone. No ransom note, nothing. Me and Tom took a swing by and her little house goblin was in hysterics, saying the house smelled like a pair of dark witches.”

  I almost dropped the phone, because I could not process what he was saying. Charlotte was missing? She was the sweetest little thing. Who would want to hurt her and why?

  Crash put his hand under my elbow, holding my arm and the phone up.

  With difficulty, I managed to gather myself enough to ask a question. “Eammon, did you and Tom find anything? Anything at all?” Because I knew him well enough to know he would have at least looked. If he was telling me, it was because he’d done that much.

  “Nothing,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, lass. I only know what the house goblin told us.”

  “I’ve gotta go,” I said. “But thanks. For all this.”

  I clicked the off button and handed the phone back to Crash. Penny took my chin in her fingers. “A little girl taken? This is a classic move of the Coven of Darkness. That is how they keep their ranks full. They take them young and talented.”

  Numb, I nodded. “She’s a good kid. Her mom is in the army, so she’s away a lot, but Charlotte always has a nanny when she’s out of town. Or her aunt and uncle take her.” I rubbed my hands over my face, thinking about the last time I’d actually spoken to Charlotte. I’d asked her about cookies of all things.

  “Did you get cookies from Eric yesterday?” I asked.

  “Yes, he sent me off with bags of them. See you in a few weeks, I hope.” Charlotte hurried down the steps, ponytail bobbing, and I watched as she slid into the backseat of a dark blue SUV.

  They pulled away from the curb, and she waved at me as she went by, both hands going as hard as she could. I grinned and waved both hands back at her.

  Only she hadn’t been smiling, had she? She’d been waving, frantic. I’d thought she was just being a goofy kid, being silly as she and her aunt and uncle sped away.

  “Oh my gawd.” My legs tingled and unhinged, and I slid to the ground while the world buzzed around me. “I saw her taken. I just didn’t realize it!” I clapped a hand over my mouth as I struggled with the horror of knowing I’d seen something and done nothing about.

  Crash crouched beside me with a hand on my back, not moving, not speaking, just there with me. I leaned into the soft warmth of his hand. Something was itching in the back of my head about Charlotte’s kidnapping, but I couldn’t quite put it together.

  “I can feel you thinking,” Crash said. “What did you figure out?”

  I held up a finger, forestalling any comments while I mulled it over. Then it hit me—Gran had started acting weird the day Charlotte was taken. Because Matilda, the ghost from the Sorrel-Weed House, had already taken her place. But I hadn’t put two and two together until this moment.

  “The same day,” I said. “Gran went missing the same day as Charlotte, I’m sure of it.” But I still didn’t understand the connection. What in the world did Charlotte have in common with a dead witch, aka my gran?

  Then again Charlotte was able to see her house goblin, Bridgette, and she’d always seemed drawn to Eric and me. I should have put two and two together, but many children could see the shadow world to some extent, even if their parents couldn’t. Someone had figured out what I hadn’t; Charlotte was part of the shadow world.

  Penny thumped her stick hard into the ground. “Someone is up for an ass whooping. I don’t know where to find Homer Underwood, do you? I’ve not heard his name before.”

  She didn’t ask it with any condescension—she genuinely thought I might have answers, and her faith in me was a little unnerving.

  I drew in a shaky breath. We could do this. We had to do this. If Gran and Charlotte had been taken by the same people, then at least we were only looking for one group of supernatural jerks. Which, in theory, should be easier, right?

  Taking in another shaky breath, I pushed up to my feet. Determination settled in my gut, powered by a spurt of anger. Bad enough that someone took Gran, who was at least dead, but Charlotte too?

  Penny was right, someone was in for an ass whooping.

  “Homer Underwood,” I said. “We start with him and see what he can tell us. Let’s get back to the house and get the troops moving. We’ve got two to find now.”

  Before the police found me and piled some real charges on top of my trumped up ones.

  I held Penny’s arm as we walked back to the house. She was trembling, but when I glanced at her, I saw a tight mouth and drawn eyebrows. Not afraid then. No, she looked about ready to spit nails at whoever had taken Gran and Charlotte. Didn’t matter that Charlotte was a stranger, only that she was a little girl who should have been left out of this. I liked Penny more for it.

  Despite Penny’s slower pace, her house came into view in what seemed a very short time. Crash held the door open for us, and we stepped inside to a cacophony of yelling.

  “Did no one see them leave?” Corb roared, his bare back to me so I could see every line of tension in his shoulders. “What the damn hell? I’m going to have to put a tracker on her!” The smell of fresh-baked bread permeated the air and somehow soothed some of my anxiety.

  Fresh-baked bread was life as far as I was concerned.

  Feish stood facing me and she pointed. “She back now, brought the boss with her. Good idea.”

  Corb spun, and the sight of Crash seemed to kick the air right out of him. The look in his eyes went from freaked the duck out, to as hard as ice in a split second. “Bree, what the hell? You can’t just leave like that and not tell anyone.”

  I pointed at the sticky note I’d left on the front door before I went out the first time. “I left a note.”

  His jaw ticked as his eyes swept to the bright yellow piece of paper. Men, you couldn’t train them to see milk in the fridge if you tried, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d look right past my note.

  His shoulders tensed further. “You should have woken me up at least. You can’t just do whatever you want, Bree.”

  And that right here was why it would never work between us, no matter how hot he was, no matter how much his magic sung through my blood when he kissed me. I couldn’t be with someone who refused to let me run my own damn life.

  A ribbon of sorrow wound around my heart, but I ignored it. My love life had been pushed even farther on the backburner with this news about Charlotte.

  I held up my ha
nd, stopping him, and then pointed to the kitchen. “Come on, we’ve learned a few things that I need to share with you all.”

  The group followed me into the kitchen, where the loaves of fresh bread were laid out on several cooling racks. Sarge had been busy. Normally I would have dug into the bread, slathered it in butter and enjoyed every bite.

  But my worry about Charlotte and Gran had my guts all twisted and I had no appetite.

  I cleared my throat. “I found out that my Gran, my parents, and Alan were killed by critters called tonton macoutes, a sort of undead zombie. All of them were killed at the Madame Lalaurie Mansion. Penny and I checked it out, but there is nothing there. That’s a dead end.”

  “Shit,” Sarge breathed out. “I thought the tonton macoutes were . . .just a myth.”

  “That’s rich coming from a werewolf,” I said. “There was no sign of them, or whoever was controlling them when we were there. So for now, just keep an eye out for anything . . .undead, I guess.”

  They all nodded and I went on. “We’ve got another place to start now. Our little recon gave us that much. Does anyone know a Homer Underwood?”

  I pointed the question mostly at Corb and Sarge as they worked with Eammon, but they both shook their heads. Feish shrugged and I looked at Crash.

  “I doubt it’s the man’s real name, but the one that Eammon knows him by,” Crash said.

  Kinkly flew in and settled in the center of the table. She must have packed for the trip, because she’d ditched the dirty black clothes and dressed in her usual autumnal colors. “Who?”

  “Homer Underwood,” I said. “He lives here in New Orleans. Eammon thought he might be able to help us find what we’re looking for.”

  She crinkled up her nose and tore off a piece of bread from the loaf next to her. “Bet he works in a cemetery with a name like Underwood.”

  We all looked at her, but I was the one who spoke the obvious question. “What?”

  “Well, it makes sense if it’s an assumed name. The dirt under a coffin is under wood, right?” She stuffed the bread into her mouth, and her eyes rolled back in her head. “So good.”

  I looked at Penny, who nodded. “I think the fairy may be on to something. The shadow world is sometimes very literal, and they like their puns and bad jokes because they find it amusing.”

  I nodded. It felt like as good a place to start as any. “Good job, Kink. Okay. One other thing. We have an added issue, another player.” I cleared my throat. “Eammon told me that our neighbor Charlotte was kidnapped, and I think it happened on the same day Gran went missing.”

  Corb and Sarge could have been a pair of dogs the way they both tipped their heads to the side and frowned at me. Feish, on the other hand, gave a burbling gasp and put a hand to her chest. “Not Charlotte! Who would dare? She is too sweet!”

  I gripped the edge of the table and leaned into it. “Yeah. I think . . . I hope . . . that maybe Sarge can look for her?”

  He shook his head. “I never met her. I can’t track someone I don’t know unless I have a scent.”

  “But you met Bridgette, and they lived together,” I said. “I’ll admit I’m grasping at straws here. You and Corb can see if you can find a scent trail anywhere. The hint of Bridgette would hopefully be strong enough to stand out to you.” I held up my hands as they started to splutter. “I know it’s a long shot. I know. But we need to split up our resources.”

  A giant group of supernaturals would also draw a lot more attention than if we went in different directions in smaller groups.

  “I suppose Crash is going with you?” Corb’s tone said it all. Everyone at the table looked at him, but Feish spoke before I could.

  “Green-eyed monster looks terrible on you, all up in your gills,” she said. “Besides. I go with Bree. Me and Kinkly. Girls’ day today.”

  I nodded because I didn’t feel like fighting about who was going with whom. I didn’t like seeing Corb jealous. I mean, yeah, I’d kissed him just a few hours before, so he had some room for jealousy. Sort of. But I’d also told him I wasn’t ready to give him what he wanted.

  Penny sighed. “I need to rest. But when I wake up, I’ll start looking through my books here to see if I can find the spell we’re looking for. Maybe I can find a local witch who would be willing to help. You”—she pointed her walking stick at me—“know what one of the ingredients is. And you know where it isn’t. See if you can find where it is.”

  She limped off, leaning on her walking stick more than ever as she made her way deeper into the house.

  Sarge saluted me, drawing my attention to him. “All right, you’re in charge, Bree. What do you want us to do should we pick up the trail?”

  I thought for a moment. “Mark it, come back to the house. We’ll meet back here at dinner. And watch your backs. There’s at least one necromancer out there throwing spells around in broad daylight.”

  Right, I’d almost forgotten that nugget, and I sighed at the series of questions they instantly threw at me. I told them about the poop head in the black hood who’d brought the statue in Jackson Square to life.

  “It sounds like you could have been just scooped away if not for Crash,” Kinkly said in a breathy voice. “He swooped in and saved you!”

  Corb’s face tightened, and he looked at one of the loaves of bread, bent, and tore off a piece. He stuffed it into his mouth to keep from talking, and within seconds, his cheeks were bulging with bread, like a squirrel preparing for winter. I had to bite back a laugh.

  “Timed spell is what Penny thought,” I said. “Basically I got lucky.”

  “Not as lucky as you want your cat to get,” Feish burbled and I stared at her. Stared hard at her because she hadn’t just made a sexual innuendo, had she?

  By the grin and huge wink, that was exactly what she’d done.

  16

  Feish’s little announcement hit the air in the kitchen like an atomic bomb going off. Seriously, I couldn’t believe all of us weren’t thrown back a few feet. Mostly because of Corb.

  “Get lucky with who, exactly?” He’d apparently finished the bread in his mouth, and his tone was as silky and deadly as I’d ever heard it. Yeah, he was going to be a problem, and I didn’t know what to do about him. I didn’t have time to deal with a jealous, lovesick siren.

  Speaking of.

  His siren magic swept through the room and about knocked me off my feet, driving me backward a few steps, my knees shaking hard. Really, all it did was push me—literally shove me—toward Crash, who once more caught me, his hands settling on my hips to help steady me.

  His fiery magic met the cascading night waters of Corb’s magic, and instead of canceling each other out, they pressed against and into each other, turning me into a sandwich. My knees buckled as Corb’s magic pulsed harder and Crash’s magic held steady, a burning flame.

  A groan escaped me, and I might have whispered a Hail Mary or two.

  “Stop,” I whispered. “Both of you stop. I can’t . . .”

  Now, let’s be brutally honest. A sudden image of being squashed naked and writhing between the two of them hit me like a runaway horse, and another groan slid out of me. If Crash hadn’t held me up, I would’ve slumped to the floor like a pile of jelly.

  “Corb.” Crash snapped, a command within his voice. Like a parent looking at their kid and just saying their name when they were in deep shit.

  And for all that was holy, Corb backed off, and Crash sat me in a chair so I was on my own, nobody touching me, no magic smashing into me. I sucked in a big breath and slowly let it out. That could have been amazing, being flooded with their sexy as hell magic at the same time. But maybe not in a room full of people. I closed my eyes as I tried to get a hold of myself.

  Crash sighed and I could imagine him shaking his head. “Feish, you’re looking to start a fight?”

  I fluttered my eyes open as Feish tipped her rounded chin up in pure defiance. “No, but that one would love and leave her. I won’t let him hurt her.�
�

  My heart twanged a little. She was loyal if nothing else.

  I looked to Sarge for help, but one glance at him told me he was being pummeled by Corb’s magic too. He’d taken a step back, eyes closed, and judging from a quick look at his pants, getting control was going to take him a few minutes, and maybe a really cold shower.

  Well, shit. So much for support from that quarter.

  “I’m not getting lucky with anyone.” I finally managed to find my voice. “I need to find my gran and now Charlotte too.” Maybe if I reminded them why we were here it would calm the hormones down. And I really hoped it worked. Because I could still hear Corb telling me he was falling in love with me, something sirens didn’t do, and I didn’t want to hurt him.

  Sarge cleared his throat. “Yeah, we’re here to help Celia. Corb, this can wait.”

  Corb didn’t so much as flinch. He might have been made of stone for all that he moved not a blinking inch. His gaze was still fixed on me.

  I carefully stood and stepped away from Crash, brushing his hands off mine when he offered them, though that meant Corb’s magic hit me full force again.

  And as good as it felt sliding over my skin, as much as it called to me to shuck my clothes and run naked into the ocean with his arms around me and his mouth on mine, I didn’t like that he was trying to force it on me. It sparked an old flame of anger and hardened my certainty like nothing else could.

  “Tone it the hell down, Corb,” I snapped, channeling my inner cranky, tired-of-this-shit, done-with-men, woman. “My gran is missing and a little girl needs us. Whatever is between you and me, or me and Crash is going to have to wait until they are safe and the police don’t want to string me up for an impromptu lynching.” I stared hard at him and knew what I said next would change the trajectory of my life, and maybe my heart. “Can you handle that, or should you go back to Savannah?”

  Corb’s magic hadn’t let up, and Alan took that moment to stick his head into the room. “What’s happening? It smells like the ocean. Are you fighting with Corb again?”