“That won’t keep Aunt Tillie out,” I laughed. “You know that.”
“I knew that the three of you were up to something,” Aunt Tillie said airily. “Let’s just say I had a feeling that you would need me.”
“You can’t come,” Thistle said. “We’re snowshoeing out to . . . somewhere.”
“The Dragonfly,” Aunt Tillie said. “Bay told me.”
Thistle swung on me. “You told her?”
“Not everything,” I hissed. “She was in the truck with Landon and me. I didn’t tell her everything.”
“I know you guys have been out there,” Aunt Tillie said.
“Who told you that?” I narrowed my eyes.
“You just did.”
“Well, you can’t come. You can’t walk that far.”
“Walk? Who’s walking,” Aunt Tillie scoffed. “I have my plow.”
Clove turned to me and raised her eyebrows, her interest was suddenly piqued. “That’s definitely better than walking.”
“I don’t know,” Thistle shook her head. “You can’t miss that truck. It’s too obvious.”
Aunt Tillie shot Thistle an angry look. “You’re just saying that because you want to leave me behind.”
“We do want to leave you behind,” I agreed. “That doesn’t mean that taking your truck is a good idea.”
“Fine,” Aunt Tillie agreed. “If we can’t take the truck, then we’ll go back to the inn and take the snowmobiles.”
“We thought about that,” I explained. “However, then we would have to explain to our mothers where we were going and what we were doing.”
“And no one wants that,” Thistle said.
“You have a point,” Aunt Tillie nodded sagely. “Doesn’t Marcus have snowmobiles?”
Thistle froze at the suggestion. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“We’re not at our best when our sleep cycle is interrupted,” I suggested helpfully. “Still, though, that’s such a better idea.”
“How many do they have?” Clove asked.
“We only need two,” I said. “We’ll double up.”
“I’m not taking Aunt Tillie,” Thistle said hurriedly.
Aunt Tillie glowered at Thistle. “You should be so lucky.”
“I’ll take Aunt Tillie,” I sighed.
“Now you want to take her?” Thistle looked incredulous.
“Uncle Teddy and Brian are both terrified of her,” I reminded Thistle.
“Brian?” Aunt Tillie looked confused. “What does Brian have to do with this?”
I told her what we had found out – everything we had found out. I even told her about breaking into the Dragonfly, hearing three mysterious voices, and then returning to the Dragonfly a second time. When I was done, Aunt Tillie looked like she was going to spontaneously combust.
“Let me get this straight,” she seethed. “You broke into the Dragonfly twice, you almost got interrupted twice, you had Edith spy on Brian and now you want to go out to the Dragonfly for a third time because someone clearly went out to the inn after leaving the Overlook this morning?”
“That’s about it,” Thistle said wryly.
“Good job,” Aunt Tillie said.
“Good job?” I was surprised by her accolades.
“You know where you screwed up?” Aunt Tillie asked.
“I do,” Clove raised her hand enthusiastically.
“Clove?” Aunt Tillie turned to her, like she was asking a question of her favorite pupil in a classroom. “Tell your cousins where they went wrong.”
“We should have taken you with us from the beginning,” Clove said smugly.
“That’s exactly right,” Aunt Tillie nodded.
Thistle and I exchanged dubious glances. Clove always was the suck-up. “Fine,” Thistle grumbled. “We should have told you from the beginning. Are you happy now?”
“I’m not unhappy,” Aunt Tillie said.
“Let’s go,” I sighed. “The longer we drag this out, the worse it’s going to be for everyone.”
“I agree,” Aunt Tillie jumped to her feet. “Let’s go crack the case.”
Thistle grabbed my arm as we started to file in behind Aunt Tillie. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“It’s Aunt Tillie,” I said. “I always have a bad feeling when she’s involved.”
“I heard that,” Aunt Tillie called out from the front door of the store.
“Of course you did,” Thistle grumbled. “You hear all and see all.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
At the door, I remembered that we had actually come to the store to leave a note for Landon. I quickly scrawled one out on a sheet of paper and propped it up against the cash register before leaving the building. A surge of guilt coursed through me, but I quickly tamped it down. Landon had told me to stay put, but he wasn’t the boss of me, I reminded myself.
When I joined everyone, I fell into line behind Aunt Tillie and plodded down the street with her. It was too late to turn back now. Aunt Tillie was going regardless, and we couldn’t let her go alone. The truth was, Thistle wasn’t the only one that had to know what was going on out at the Dragonfly. I had to know, too. It would plague me, haunt my dreams, if I tried to ignore it.
Once we go to the stable, Marcus greeted us with a warm smile – and a curious eyebrow. “What’s going on?” He dropped a kiss on Thistle’s waiting mouth but he didn’t make a move towards Aunt Tillie. She was generally friendly with him, but he was terrified of her.
“We need to borrow two snowmobiles,” Thistle said apologetically.
“Why?”
“What does it matter,” Aunt Tillie replied irritably.
Marcus took an involuntary step back. “Of course. I’ll gas two of them up.”
“That would be great,” Thistle put a hand on his arm.
“Where are you going?” Marcus asked nervously.
“We’re going to the Dragonfly,” Thistle said.
“That old burned out inn?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“What are you, the snowmobile police?” Aunt Tillie barked.
“Oh, leave him alone,” Thistle argued. “He’s doing us a favor.”
Aunt Tillie turned to me for support.
“You’re being mean,” I agreed.
“Well, he’s not moving fast enough,” Aunt Tillie said. “I’m not getting any younger.”
“All physical evidence to the contrary,” I laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Aunt Tillie said. “I do think I’ve been insulted, though.”
“It’s not an insult,” I sighed heavily.
“I’ll decide that later,” Aunt Tillie said. “After we crack the case.”
“Great.” I had definitely spent too much time with Aunt Tillie today. In an effort to get just a minute of quiet time, I wandered away from the group and back outside. The day didn’t look like it was going to be over any time soon.
Marcus was busy gassing up the snowmobiles and I could hear Aunt Tillie griping about how long it was taking him. I let my eyes wander over the town, taking in the almost untouched winter wonderland laid out in front of me. Hemlock Cove may be small, but it had a beauty that couldn’t be denied.
I was enthralled with that beauty for a few minutes, just breathing in the cold air and enjoying my hometown, when a hint of movement caught my attention. I turned and stared towards the docks, squinting my eyes to try and clarify what I was seeing.
“What is that?” Thistle had slid up beside me.
“There’s someone on the docks,” I said.
“By that abandoned boat,” Thistle said. “I see him, too.”
Thistle turned to me slowly, realization dawning on her face. “Why would someone be on that boat the day after a blizzard?”
“Let’s go find out.”
Thirty-Three
“Are you sure you want to do
this?”
I was surprised by Thistle’s sudden reticence. She was usually the first one through a door in a crisis. I regarded her speculatively. “You don’t want to go see who is over there?”
“I don’t know,” Thistle admitted.
“You’re worried it’s your dad,” I said sagely.
“Maybe,” Thistle worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
“We don’t know that whatever is happening out at the Dragonfly has anything to do with the Hobbes going missing from their boat,” I reminded her.
“We don’t know that it doesn’t either,” Thistle replied. “I think you think that that the two cases are entwined.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Hemlock Cove is a small town,” Thistle said. “It would be more surprising if we had two crimes going on at once and they had nothing to do with each other.”
She had a point. “We don’t now that anything illegal is going on out at the Dragonfly.”
Thistle shot me a harsh look. “I’m not Clove,” she said. “I don’t need things white-washed for me.”
“We don’t even know that your dad was one of the people out at the Dragonfly.”
“We don’t know that he wasn’t either.”
I blew out a sigh. “I need to know who is over on that boat.”
Thistle glanced behind us. Aunt Tillie was still verbally lambasting Marcus – and she was doing it out of our sight line. “We should go now. We’ll never be able to sneak up on whoever it is if she’s with us.”
I nodded my silent assent. Thistle and I detached from the shadows that had been hiding us under the eaves of the stables and started down the street. There really was no way to hide our approach, but I was hoping we could at least pretend we were going to the newspaper as a momentary diversion.
The closer we got to the docks, the more my heart started to race. You know when you have that feeling where you’re sure that your life is about to change – although you cant pinpoint why you have that feeling? That’s how I was feeling now.
When we got to the docks, we tacitly agreed to go single file – pressing close to the fence on the far side of the walkway. Thistle gestured to the footprints on the walkway silently. There were three different sets. It was impossible to tell – for us at least – if they belonged to men or women. They just looked like boot prints in more than a foot of snow to us. It was the number of prints, though, that was troubling. It kept coming down to three. Three people at the Dragonfly. Three cars disappearing from the caravan into town. Three sets of footprints.
We followed the tracks right to the boat. Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately – the deck of the boat was empty. I glanced at Thistle. The set of her jaw was grim, but determined all the same. She climbed onto the boat first, slipping a little on the smooth deck. I followed her and we both glanced around nervously.
“Do you think we should go inside?” Thistle whispered.
“I think that’s where the footprints lead.”
“Actually,” Thistle furrowed her brow. “Only two sets of footprints lead to the boat. The others broke off at the dock and then headed down the trail that leads to the library.”
I followed the line of her finger as she pointed and nodded. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Let’s just do it,” I said finally. “It’s not like we’re unarmed. We can conjure something if we have to – even if it’s just a glamour to get away.”
“Too bad we can’t conjure Aunt Tillie’s shotgun.”
I grunted in agreement and stepped in front of Thistle to take the lead. If someone was sitting below deck with a gun, I wanted him to shoot me first. Kind of. Okay, I didn’t really want that, I just wouldn’t be able to live with myself if it happened the other way around.
I descended the steps into the below-deck cabin, taking as much care as possible to be quiet, and found myself in a small living area with a couch, an easy chair and a small bookshelf. It was empty other than the furniture.
Thistle blew out a sigh of relief that seemed to echo in the silence of the cabin. I slapped her shoulder to silence her, but that was even louder in the ominous quiet. Thistle smacked me back before she realized how loud we were being.
“Shhh!” We both shushed each other at the same time.
“You’re not going to sneak up on anyone if these are your spying skills.”
Thistle and I both froze at the sound of the new individual entering the room. My heart stuttered as I recognized the voice – even though it wasn’t one that exactly filled me with fear. Finally, I swiveled my upper body and looked at the doorway that separated the living room of the cabin from the hallway that led to – what I assumed – was the bedrooms and bathroom.
“Mr. Baker,” Thistle said in surprise before I could initiate my own vocal chords.
“Actually, it’s Byron Hobbes.”
“I knew it!” Oh, look, I found my voice. “I told you,” I swung on Thistle. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“You were right,” Thistle grumbled. “You want a cookie?”
“Maybe later,” I said. “What are you doing here, Mr. Hobbes?”
“Seeing if the boat is seaworthy or not,” he admitted. “We’re ready to get out of here. It’s a nice place, don’t get me wrong, but I wouldn’t want to live here. Too much snow.”
“Don’t you live in Canada?” Thistle asked.
“Yeah, but when you get snow up there it’s not as big a deal,” Byron shrugged. “Here, you get a foot of snow and it shuts everything down for three days. That’s not normal.”
“Who are you talking to, Byron?” Mrs. Baker – or Lillian Hobbes, I guess – wandered up behind her husband. She didn’t look surprised to see us.
“Thistle, Bay, what a nice surprise.”
“You don’t seem all that upset to see us,” Thistle said.
“It was just a matter of time before someone put it together,” Lillian said. “We were hopeful that we might be able to get out of town before the police realized that the Bakers only existed on paper – but we were doubtful that would be feasible.”
“Why did you abandon the boat in the middle of the channel?” I asked.
“We wanted a new life,” Lillian said. “We wanted to just disappear, letting everyone think we were dead, and then just find a new place to live out our golden years.”
“We were going to go someplace warmer,” Byron said. “The blizzard kind of messed us up, though.”
“Why would you want to disappear?” Thistle asked. “What about your family?”
“You haven’t met our family,” Lillian said. “They’re all lazy losers.”
“Not a one of them has a job,” Byron agreed. “Our kids sponged off us their entire lives. It was our fault, I know that, but they don’t have a work ethic. We got sick of taking care of them.
“Then, when they had kids,” he continued. “They taught their offspring that work was a dirty word and all they needed to do to get money was ask us for it.”
“I don’t understand,” I admitted. “Why didn’t you just cut them off?”
“You can’t just cut off family,” Byron said. “Trust me, I’ve tried. The tears, I tell you.”
“The crying, the wailing,” Lillian supplied. “And that was our son.”
“So you were going to fake your death? I don’t get it,” Thistle said honestly.
“Our family isn’t exactly normal,” Byron admitted.
“Whose is?” Thistle said bitterly.
“Oh, honey,” Lillian grabbed Thistle’s hand compassionately. “You have no idea how lucky you are.”
“Have you met my Aunt Tillie?”
“A woman that loves you with her whole heart.”
“And the devil horns she keeps hidden under that curly cap she calls hair,” Thistle supplied.
“She has a few quirks,” Lillian acknowledged. “But you live in a family that loves each other. It’s not about the money. It’s about t
he . . . magic.”
Thistle shared an uncomfortable gaze with me before turning back to Byron. “I still don’t understand why you just can’t cut your kids off. Give them a date where they have to get a job and stand firm.”
Byron sighed and sat down on the couch. “You see, we’re rich people.”
“I noticed,” I replied, glancing around the boat appreciatively.
“The thing is, we didn’t exactly make our money the old-fashioned way.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Thistle said.
“Well, you see,” Byron hedged. “We own a string of laundry facilities.”
“Like Laundromats?”
“Yes,” Byron nodded.
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.
“It was a good living,” Lillian supplied. “It just wasn’t going to make us rich.”
“Not filthy rich,” Byron agreed. “And we wanted to be filthy rich.”
I had no idea where they were going with this.
“So,” Byron continued. “When a local businessman approached us with an opportunity that would allow us to bring in five times the money we were making on a monthly basis, well, we jumped at it.”
“And how did you do that?” Thistle asked suspiciously.
“We took on a series of investors that would give us a sum of money,” Lillian said quickly. “We would then give those same investors – under a different name, of course – most of that money back. We would keep a portion of the money ourselves for our trouble.”
“I still don’t get it,” Thistle looked befuddled.
“They’re money launderers,” I supplied.
“Oh,” Thistle said. “Oh!”
Byron shrugged apologetically. “It’s a living.”
“It’s a crime,” I countered.
“They don’t exactly look like criminals,” Thistle said.
“We’re not criminals,” Lillian corrected Thistle. “We’re the people that help criminals.”
“Well, that makes it better,” I said sarcastically.
“I still don’t understand why that stops you from cutting your kids off?” Thistle said.
“Well,” Lillian shifted her gaze to her husband. “You see, our daughter happened to marry one of the individuals we worked with.”
“Your daughter married a mobster?”
Witching You Were Here (Wicked Witches of the Midwest Book 3) Page 21
