“There’s not really anything I can arrest you for, since you didn’t make any false reports. All you did was put some of your own belongings in your own vehicle and stay out of communication. Not that I endorse what you did.”
“Is it up to me whether to press charges? Because I won’t. I honestly didn’t want him to go to jail, and I did provoke him. I think he may have learned his lesson.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but maybe sitting in a jail cell for a while would cool Hugo off.
“We’ll discuss that later,” Wes said. He finished his lemonade, bent to pet Bowser one more time, then stood. “Thank you for the lemonade. Now I have some paperwork to do.”
“Won’t you stay for dinner?” Florrie asked.
“Thank you, but no.”
“Lexie, what about you?”
I glanced down at my wet clothes. “I guess I could stand to dry off before I drive home.”
“Before you eat, you’ll need to move your car out of the alley,” Wes said. “That’s one reason the neighbors called. The alley is narrow and you’re partially blocking it.”
“Do you think you could move it into the driveway for me?” I asked, taking the keys out of my pocket and handing them to him. “I’d rather not sit on the upholstery right now.”
He took the keys and went through the gate, returning a moment later to give me the keys back. “Thanks,” I told him.
“We’ll talk later,” he said, and he was so deadpan that I couldn’t tell if I was in trouble or if he wanted to hang out.
Oh, who was I kidding? I was in trouble. I might even have deserved it.
Florrie gave me one of her caftans to wear so she could run my clothes through the dryer while we ate dinner. It ended up being not a bad evening, sitting by the pool, eating dinner, and chatting. When she wasn’t angry or distraught, she turned out to be intelligent and funny. The people who ignored her were missing out. I wondered if there was anything she could do to counteract her power. As we finished our meal, I asked, “Do you know anything about the history of this town?”
“Not really. I never lived here, and my parents seemed to be glad to get away. Why?”
“This is going to sound weird, but there’s something related to the town’s history that might explain your thing with people not noticing you. You should talk to some of your local relatives.” I wasn’t up to trying to convince someone that there were people in the town who had uncanny abilities they’d inherited from an eerie sideshow, but she needed to know. “If your relatives don’t know what you’re talking about, call me. I know some people who might be able to explain it.”
“You’ve got me intrigued. But for a while, I might not mind being invisible. I’m not sure what people are going to think about all this. There’s a good chance that they’ll be as mad at me for putting Hugo through all that while I was perfectly safe and sound the whole time as they are at Hugo for lying to me and cheating on me. That’s the way things tend to go for us.”
“I guess going unnoticed is good when it comes to scandal or embarrassing moments.”
“If only I knew how to turn it off and on. Most of the time, I’d prefer that people notice me.”
That was where I hoped her relatives could help.
When I was dressed once more in dry clothes and my shoes were mostly dried out, I went back home, where I was met by an anxious ghost. “Where have you been? Charlene tried to call you.”
“I know. My phone was full of messages. It was on silent while I was creeping around. I did call her back when I got a chance after all the excitement.”
“Excitement? I take it you found your missing person.”
“Yeah, and even more than that.” I gave her a quick recap of events, then asked, “Do you know about a woman, probably in the fifties, who died from what might have been domestic abuse? There may have been a child involved, too.”
Jean nodded, and her form shifted slightly so that she looked older, middle-aged, and wearing one of those slim suits from the fifties. I wondered if that one was in the box of old clothes in my closet. “I’ll never forget that case,” she said, her face solemn. “Her child was found dead in the trash in the alley, and she was accused. Back then, if something happened to a kid, the mother got blamed. But then she ended up dead in just about the same way. I always figured the husband killed both of them, but he spun some story about an intruder coming while he was out, and they believed him. He didn’t even go to trial. He remarried within months, but they moved out of that house pretty quickly and left town. Why? What did that have to do with all this?”
“I think Florrie was house-sitting at the house where it happened. The ghost saved us. She really did not like a man threatening women. She wasn’t able to do much to him, but I think he felt her presence, and that distracted him enough for me to do something. I wonder if I could do a follow-up story to clear her name.”
Jean surprised me by shaking her head. “No. There’s no one left in town connected to them, and you won’t find any evidence other than the ghost. She may have gotten some peace from saving you two tonight.”
“I hope so.”
“And people wonder why I never married,” Jean said before vanishing.
I’d just taken a shower and put on clean clothes when I heard a knock at my door. I was pretty sure who it would be, and I was right. Now the question was, was I in trouble or was this visit friendly?
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Wes said when I opened the door.
“I’m fine. I wasn’t ever really in danger, I don’t think.”
“That’s not what it looked like when I found you clinging to a guy with a gun. Why did you go there, anyway?”
“I just wanted to check on whether she was really there. I thought I saw her in the alley yesterday afternoon.”
“You saw her? Why didn’t you say something?”
“I wasn’t sure. I asked some of the other people there, but it was like Thursday night at the restaurant, when no one else seemed to see her or remember her. After all that time I spent trying to make you believe she was missing, I didn’t feel like I could tell you she wasn’t missing without any proof. Since I was wrong in the first place, I felt like it was up to me to set the record straight. And then Hugo showed up. I did not anticipate that.”
He shook his head. “I still can’t believe she was right there, across the alley, the whole time.”
“She was planning to reappear after her local newspaper went to press. Oh no, the newspaper!” I said with a gasp, remembering that other editor. It was way too late now.
“What about the newspaper?” he asked, not following my train of thought.
“The one in her hometown. He goes to press tonight, so he’s going to have a story about her being missing and her husband being taken in for questioning after being found in Stirling Mills with evidence in his car. I didn’t think to let him know in time.”
“That’s what she wanted. And having met Hugo, I’m okay with giving her that one.”
“After this afternoon, me too. But I feel bad for the other editor, since the truth will be out before his paper gets delivered.”
“It’ll probably be his biggest selling issue ever.”
“Probably. Unfortunately, I won’t have anything to run, since there was no crime and she’s not missing anymore. I guess my lead story will have to be the superintendent’s musical flash mob.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Must have been something. Well, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” He started to go, but turned back. “Are you sure there’s nothing you haven’t told me about all this that I need to know?”
This was where dealing with someone who could read minds got tricky. Supposedly, I had barriers he couldn’t get past, but I didn’t know how solid they were and if they worked all the time. Was he just guessing, or did he somehow know? Florrie, I realized. He must have read Florrie. But there was nothing he could do legally based on reading someone’s mind. “No
thing,” I said. “I’ve already told you everything. Repeatedly. You’ve complained about how much I was telling you.”
He nodded. “Okay, then. Take it easy. You’ve had a rough couple of days.” His voice was flat, without any feeling or enthusiasm.
“I have a paper to get out. I can’t take it easy until Thursday night.”
“You could maybe try to avoid heat exhaustion or being held at gunpoint for at least a week.”
“I can’t make any promises.”
He smiled, but I had a sense that he was disappointed as he left. He knew I’d lied to him. I’d been so worried about my credibility after trying to convince him that Florrie was missing, but now I might be destroying whatever credibility I had with him. “Wes, wait!” I called out, catching him halfway down the stairs. He stopped and turned back, coming up to the landing again. Looking him in the eye, I said, “There was something that happened, but I don’t want to go on record with it. There was no harm done and I don’t want anything to come of it.”
The smile he gave me made me feel like I’d passed some kind of test. “Thanks for telling me. I feel better knowing you’re okay with it.”
“You’re not going to do anything?”
“I can’t, not if you don’t tell me officially. You’re sure you don’t want to do that?”
“Very sure.”
“Okay, then,” he said, nodding. He gave me the kind of grin that made my heart feel swollen, like it was going to burst out of my chest. I thought of about a dozen things I’d like to say in the moment, but my tongue was paralyzed and I missed my chance because he gave me another nod and headed down the stairs. I watched him go, feeling like something important had passed between us, though I wasn’t quite sure what.
But I certainly looked forward to finding out.
Lexie’s adventures will continue soon in Mystery of the Haunted Hotel.
* * *
To find out when the next book is available and receive an exclusive short story about the history of Stirling Mills, sign up for the Shanna Swendson mailing list.
Also by Shanna Swendson
The Enchanted, Inc. Series
Enchanted, Inc.
Once Upon Stilettos
Damsel Under Stress
Don’t Hex with Texas
Much Ado About Magic
No Quest for the Wicked
Kiss and Spell
Frogs and Kisses
Enchanted Ever After
* * *
Enchanted, Inc. Stories
Paint the Town Red
Criminal Enchantment
* * *
The Lucky Lexie Mysteries
Interview with a Dead Editor
Case of the Curious Crystals
Mystery of the Drowned Driver
* * *
The Rebels Series
Rebel Mechanics
Rebel Magisters
Rebels Rising
* * *
The Fairy Tale Series
A Fairy Tale
To Catch a Queen
A Kind of Magic
* * *
Twice Upon a Christmas
Make Mine Magic
Spindled
About the Author
SHANNA SWENDSON earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas and used to work in public relations but decided it was more fun to make up the people she wrote about, so now she’s a full-time novelist. She lives in Irving, Texas, with several hardy houseplants and too many books to fit on the shelves.
Visit her web site and sign up for her mailing list at shannaswendson.com
Copyright © 2021 by Shanna Swendson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: The Killion Group, Inc.
Case of the Vanishing Visitor Page 16
