“It’s just that . . .” Edith looked like she was biting her lip. “Back when I first started working for the paper your Uncle Calvin came in one day to buy an ad.”
I had no idea where she was going with this.
“Anyway, the next day I woke up and I found that all my shoes were too small,” Edith continued. “And not just too small. They really pinched and hurt. When I put my feet in them, it felt like I was stepping on nails.”
“Why would you think that had anything to do with Aunt Tillie?”
“Because she came in after your Uncle Calvin left and accused me of trying to seduce him.”
Yep, that would do it. “Were you? Trying to seduce him, I mean?”
“Of course not,” Edith looked scandalized, and a little guilty. “I just baked him some cookies. He was always so thin, I didn’t think your Aunt Tillie was cooking for him.”
That was probably a safe bet. Aunt Tillie had many talents, but cooking wasn’t one of them. My grandmother had been the great cook of her generation. My Aunt Tillie would have starved if my mom and aunts weren’t good cooks.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” I said finally. “Just for reference, though, how long was it before your shoes fit again?”
“About a week, why?”
“I’m just wondering how long it’s going to be before Thistle can fit into her pants.”
After getting settled for the day, I decided to go and have a little talk with Brian Kelly. It wasn’t just Edith’s tip about the phone call, but it was also the fact that I had a feeling that Brian knew more about Ted’s business dealings than he was letting on.
Brian’s door was open so I walked in without knocking.
“Good morning, Bay.” Brian greeted me like he hadn’t been a witness to the catastrophic dinner the previous evening.
“Morning,” I said shortly.
“How are you doing today?”
“Great.”
“That’s good,” Brian looked up from the file he was nose deep in. “Do you need something?”
As openings went, it wasn’t the best, but I wasn’t going to let that dissuade me. I sat down in one of the wingback chairs across from the desk and fixed Brian with a hard glare. “I want to know more about your dealings with Ted.”
“I’ve told you everything,” Brian said evasively.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. Ted is looking to invest some money in the area, including advertising. It’s not like I was going to turn him down.”
“You didn’t have a problem hiding it from me, though,” I pointed out.
“He’s a business associate that asked me to keep his private business private,” Brian said blithely. “He has that right.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“That’s all I’m going to say. I wish you would just let this go. Don’t you have an edition you’re supposed to be working on? A missing couple? I don’t see why this is such a big deal.”
“You’re right,” I said tightly. “I do have some things I should be doing.”
What Brian didn’t know, though, was that I wasn’t giving up on this. When I got back to my office, I was relieved to find that Edith was gone. I could only hope she was out haunting Aunt Tillie in retribution for the Great Shoe Escapade of 1965.
I fired up my laptop and started doing a search of land deeds in the county. I fed Ted’s name into the search engine and came up with three different properties. When I pulled up the deeds on the parcels, I found that one was an old farmhouse with about a hundred acres of land attached to it. If the picture of the house was any indication, he was clearly more interested in the land.
The second piece of property had riverfront acreage on the Hollow Creek. Most of the Hollow Creek was encumbered with dense underbrush and trees. It wasn’t fit for construction. There were small pockets, though, that were beautiful and flat enough for small buildings. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought the parcel Ted had bought was one of those flat areas.
The third property record was the most interesting one. It was the Dragonfly, a dilapidated old inn that had been abandoned almost two decades before. In fact, if I remembered correctly, I thought that a portion of the inn had burned down at one point. The inn was only five minutes out of town. The road that led to it was still unpaved. The original owners had abandoned it after a failed insurance scam – yep, the fire – and the bank had owned it ever since. Now why would Ted want that old inn?
I closed my laptop but continued to mull over the three pieces of property that Ted had bought in the past six months. They seemed to be quite a hodgepodge. I decisively got to my feet and left the newspaper to head down the street to Hypnotic.
When I got there, I found Clove working at the front desk and Thistle sulking on the couch.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m doing the ordering for next week and Thistle is plotting revenge,” Clove said, never looking up from the catalogue she was perusing.
“Any good stuff?”
“There are Christmas voodoo dolls? Did you know they made those?”
“Do they look like Santa Claus?”
“Yes. And Mrs. Claus. Actually, the Mrs. Claus one kind of looks like Aunt Tillie.”
“Order it,” Thistle barked out. “I want to stick pins in something and, she might be old, but I think Aunt Tillie might still be able to put up enough of a fight that I can’t do it to her in the flesh.”
“So,” I sat down on the couch next to Thistle and changed the subject. “I did a little research.”
“About how to get back at Aunt Tillie?” Thistle asked hopefully.
“No,” I shook my head. “About Uncle Teddy.”
Thistle looked surprised. “What kind of research?”
“I pulled up the county’s land deeds and found out some interesting stuff about the property he’s been buying.”
“Like what?” Thistle asked.
I told them about the three pieces of property. When I was done, the room was awash with confused silence.
“Why would you buy property on the Hollow Creek?” Clove asked finally. “It’s not like you can put a business out there. A house, maybe, but not a business. I thought he was all about developing businesses.”
“Maybe he plans on building a house out there,” I shrugged.
“Wouldn’t he mention it, if he planned on staying, I mean,” Thistle said. I couldn’t help but note the hopeful – and concerned – tone of her voice.
“Maybe it’s for someone else,” I said. “That’s not actually the piece of property that piqued my interest, though.”
“The inn?” Clove asked knowingly.
“That thing is a wreck and half burned out,” I nodded.
“What do you think he’s doing?’
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m curious, though.”
“Maybe some company wants to buy the inn and renovate it. This area has a pretty solid tourist population.”
“That’s a possibility,” I agreed.
“But you don’t think so?” Clove queried.
“I think I want to check it out,” I said finally.
“The inn?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think we’ll find out there?” Thistle asked.
We? “You’re coming with me?’
“Of course,” Thistle said. “When have you ever known me to miss out on an adventure?”
Good point.
“Plus,” she added evilly. “Maybe we can dump Aunt Tillie’s body out there when I kill her.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “It’s at least worth a look.”
Thistle looked thrilled with the idea, while Clove looked anything but. “We’re going at night, aren’t we?”
“Of course,” Thistle said. “You can’t sneak around during the day.”
“Why don’t we just ask him if we can see it?” Clove hated sneaking around, esp
ecially when it was in the dark.
“That would defeat the whole purpose,” Thistle scoffed.
“You think the best way to make up with your dad is to sneak around and spy on him?” Clove tried a different tactic.
“I’m not sure I want to make up with him,” Thistle admitted. “I do want to know what’s going on out at that inn, though.”
“You just want something to do,” Clove grumbled.
“Oh, come on, it will fun.”
“It’s never fun,” Clove exploded. “We always do this and it always gets us into trouble. Don’t you guys remember looking for gold at the Hollow Creek and finding a body? Or how about sneaking around a cornfield and finding ghosts? That was fun.”
“This time will be different,” Thistle promised.
“It will be,” I agreed.
Clove sighed and walked behind the curtain that led to the storage room at the back of the store. “It better be.”
Once she was gone, Thistle turned to me. “It’s not going to be any different.”
“Nope.”
Fifteen
When you’re sneaking around at night and doing something nefarious you have to dress the part. Usually that means all black. When there is snow on the ground, though, you have to be a little more creative. Half white and half black is generally the best mix for winter. It’s like natural camouflage. Or cotton camouflage. You know what I mean.
When we were all in the living room and ready to leave, Thistle couldn’t stop herself from laughing out loud. “We look like idiots.”
I couldn’t help but agree with her. We were all wearing black jogging pants and white hoodies. We had several shirts underneath the hoodies for layering, but it was still going to be tough to stay warm.
Clove grabbed a thermos off the counter and started heading for the door. “Let’s get this over with. I want to come back here as soon as possible – and you two are going to buy me pizza for making me do this.”
“We’re not making you do this. Stay here if you want.”
“No way,” Clove shook her head. “You guys will be telling stories about this for a week and I don’t want to miss out.”
“See, then we’re not making you go. What’s in the thermos, by the way?” Thistle asked.
“Hot chocolate.”
“No liquor, right?”
“No liquor,” Clove acknowledged. “One of us has to drive. I’m saving the liquor for when we get back. I bought stuff to make chocolate martinis.”
I loved chocolate martinis. Now I didn’t want to go on our little adventure. A roaring fire, chocolate martinis and pizza sounded heavenly. Thistle looked like she read my mind. “We’re going,” she said. “If we hurry, we can be there and back in less than an hour.”
I sighed. She was right. This was my idea, after all.
Thistle drove to the Dragonfly, mostly because she had the best night vision but also because her car was black. It wouldn’t be as easily seen or recognized as my red Range Rover.
When were got near the property, Thistle killed the lights and pulled off to the side of the road. “There’s nowhere to hide the car.”
“We’ll just tell people it broke down if they ask,” I said finally.
“That will work,” Thistle agreed.
We all got out of the car and walked the remaining quarter of a mile to the inn. It looked deserted. Of course, it was almost pitch black, but there were no other vehicles in sight and the inn was completely dark.
“We should have brought flashlights,” Clove whined. “How are we ever going to see anything?”
“We’re witches,” Thistle reminded her. “We don’t need flashlights.”
Thistle opened her hand and whispered a short spell. A ball of light appeared in the palm of her hand and lifted into the air above our heads. Despite how small it was, it let off a decent amount of light. We walked towards the inn, letting the light lead us.
“The front porch doesn’t look safe,” Clove shifted beside me.
She was right. “Let’s walk around towards the back,” I suggested.
“We’ll leave tracks,” Thistle said.
I glanced down at the ground. Now that she mentioned it, we should have been looking for evidence of footsteps in the snow from the beginning. Thistle followed my gaze. “It looks like two different people have been here at least,” she said.
“Yeah. Those are big footprints. That means men.”
“Or women in big boots,” Clove said.
“Maybe.” I wasn’t so sure about that, though.
I glanced at the front of the Dragonfly curiously. All of the tracks led up to the front porch and it didn’t look like anyone had fallen through. I shrugged as I regarded Thistle. “We should keep on the other tracks.”
We climbed the steps mostly without incident. Clove slipped on the accumulated ice and grabbed on to Thistle to keep from falling at one point, but no one took any big spills. When we got to the front door, Thistle tried to turn the knob but it was locked.
“Well, we tried,” Clove said nervously. “Let’s go home.”
Thistle rolled her eyes. She moved her hand over the knob for a second and then we heard the unmistakable click of the lock tumbling on the other side. “Did you forget how we used to get into the locked wine closet as teenagers?”
One look at Clove told me she had. “This is officially breaking and entering.”
“We didn’t break anything,” I reminded her.
“Well, it’s officially entering without permission.”
“You never used to be such a prude,” I said. “Remember when we were teenagers and the principal looked down your shirt and we retaliated by toilet papering his yard and starting the toilet paper on fire? That was your idea.”
“It was Thistle’s idea to start it on fire.”
This was true. “Still,” I said. “You were gung-ho to go out on that little adventure.”
“That was different,” Clove argued. “That was in the middle of spring and nowhere near as dangerous.”
“How is this dangerous?”
“What if someone finds us out here?”
“Then we’ll just say our car broke down and we were looking for a phone,” Thistle said.
“We have cell phones.”
“The longer you sit here and argue, the longer this is going to take us,” I said.
“Fine,” Clove said. “Just know that I’m doing this under duress.”
“Duly noted.”
We let the ball of light lead us into main foyer of the inn. The room was completely empty except for the curtains covering the windows – and they looked new.
“Why would you buy new curtains when there’s no back wall to the property?” Thistle asked.
“To hide something,” I replied.
“There’s nothing in here, though.”
“Not in this room,” I agreed.
Thistle set her jaw grimly and nodded. We moved further into the dark inn. The room behind the foyer led to the dining room. It was also empty. We all looked at the staircase that led upstairs and wordlessly turned away from it. None of us felt comfortable enough to go upstairs. We would be cut off from any avenue of escape if we did.
Instead, we headed for the room behind the dining room – which we all assumed was the kitchen. When we got there, though, we were understandably confused. “This is the kitchen?”
“I think it used to be.”
“There’s nothing here.”
“What’s over there?” I pointed towards a door at the back of the room.
“Probably the larder,” Clove said.
“What’s a larder?”
“This is an old inn. Larders were for keeping food before refrigerators and stuff,” Clove said knowingly. “They probably just used it for storage.”
Thistle moved towards the small room, the ball of light moving with her. Clove was right on her heels. She didn’t want to be away from the light. “Is there anything in there?”
>
“No,” Thistle said. “But it looks like there was.”
“What do you mean?” I peered around the corner and into the small storage closet. There was a layer of dust on the floor that had clearly been disturbed sometime recently.
“It looks like big crates,” Clove said finally. “What do you think was in them?”
“How should we know?” Thistle asked irritably. “You’ve been with us since we got here. Do you think we magically know something that we’re not telling you?”
“No need to get snippy.”
“I’m not snippy. You’re just being dippy,” Thistle shot back.
“You’re a poet and you didn’t know it,” I sang out.
“No one needs that,” Thistle chastised me.
“There’s obviously nothing here,” I said finally.
“Not now, at least,” Thistle agreed.
We all froze when we heard the sound of a car door slamming somewhere outside. I glanced around the kitchen for someplace to hide. Thistle and Clove were right behind me.
“What do we do?” Clove hissed.
“We can’t get trapped in this house,” Thistle said.
I knew she was right. Instead of heading back through the house the way we had come I turned towards the door at the back of the kitchen instead. When I looked on the other side, I found what I assumed used to be a laundry room. The back of the room was missing, though. It was clearly the part of the inn that had been destroyed by fire. There was only a tarp keeping the elements from claiming the rest of the house.
Thistle quickly doused her ball of light and we all slipped into the laundry room, being careful to shut the door quietly behind us. I knelt down, pressing myself to the wall on the other side of the kitchen. Thistle and Clove did the same, all of us trying to control the ragged tempo of our own breath.
“Why don’t we just leave?” Clove whispered.
Thistle clamped her hand over Clove’s mouth to shush her. It was just in time, too, we could hear voices entering the kitchen. There were three distinct ones to differentiate from.
“Are you sure about this?”
I didn’t know who was talking, but I could hear grunting as something big slid from behind the counter – the area we hadn’t previously looked – and out into the open kitchen. Whoever was inside had flashlights, but I didn’t want to risk standing up to look inside in case they caught a glimpse of me through the glass door separating us from them.
Witching You Were Here (Wicked Witches of the Midwest Book 3) Page 10
