The Magic Library Mysteries Collection: The Complete Series, Books 1-3

by Hillary Avis

  “It’s OK, kids. You can talk to her. That’s Mrs. Rye. She used to be my babysitter when I was your age.” Theo chuckled as he exited the back of the moving truck down the long ramp. The back of Allison’s neck prickled when she saw him—he was wearing the yellow-and-black work gloves she’d seen in the killer’s memory! He pulled off one glove and set it down on the bed of the truck before wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Let the dog sniff you before you pet him so he gets to know you.”

  The children crept closer, holding out their hands for Pogo. When he gleefully licked them, they squealed. “He likes me! He kissed me!”

  Allison couldn’t help smiling. “He does! He loves meeting kids. Would you like to run around with him?”

  They nodded eagerly, so Allison dropped his leash and shooed him onto the grass with her foot. She knew he wouldn’t run off—not when he had playmates like these. Pogo play-bowed to the kids, who squealed again and ran in circles around the dog. Pogo barked and barked as he joined their tornado of noise, his leash flying behind him.

  “That’ll keep ’em busy for a while.” Theo grinned at her, and then raised his eyebrows. “What brings you?”

  She studiously avoided looking at the glove he’d removed and instead lifted the casserole in her hands. “Myra and I were talking and decided you all might appreciate some dinner, so I made a shepherd’s pie.”

  “Oh, wow! Thanks!” His eyes lit up and he reached for the dish. “It smells amazing.”

  “Careful, it could burn you. I just took it out of the oven.” Allison adjusted her grip so he could take it from her hands without losing the towel. Once he had ahold of it, she saw her chance. His hands full of a piping-hot casserole, he had no way to stop her from doing what she was about to do.

  She whipped one of the dog-doo bags from her pocket and, slipping it over her hand, used it to grab the yellow-and-black glove from the bed of the truck. She flipped the bag inside out and tied it up as fast as she could.

  Shock registered on Theo’s face, and he stumbled backward, away from her as he stared at the bag in her hands. “Wha—why’d you do that?”

  “I think you know why, Theo,” Allison said quietly. He sagged against the side of the truck, still holding the casserole at chest level, and stared up at the sky. He was quiet for a few moments. She added, “You wore the gloves when you climbed into Gertrude Winter’s room at Golden Gardens, didn’t you?”

  He made eye contact with her and nodded, looking miserable. “How’d you know?”

  She couldn’t very well say that she’d seen it in his memories, so she just ignored the question. “You touched her with these gloves on, so the police will find your DNA on the inside and her DNA on the outside. It proves you’re the one who killed her.”

  “I didn’t kill her! I didn’t even mean to hurt her. I was just going to climb in, grab the envelope, and climb out. But she had to wake up and attack me!” He slid down the side of the truck until he was sitting on the sidewalk and bowed his head. “I didn’t stab her. You have to believe me. She just fell.”

  “I know,” Allison said. “And the police know that, too, from the medical examiner’s report. You won’t go to jail for murder. But I’m sure you realize that Gertrude wouldn’t have died if you hadn’t climbed in that window. She would have enjoyed her sweepstakes win and had fun throwing her money around a little bit and lived out the rest of her natural life. But instead she died because you were there. Because you took that envelope. You stole her money and you stole her life.”

  Gertrude probably would have given all the money to Harman, Allison thought. But that might have been fun for her, too. She got a lot of pleasure out of treating Harman, and he’d return payment in the form of flattering attention, and that was worth something.

  “I had to do it—for Ella,” Theo said. His voice seemed to be gaining strength, so Allison watched him warily, afraid that he might set down the casserole and lunge for her. She pulled her phone out of her purse and, as discreetly as possible, found Kara’s number. Her thumb hovered over the call button, ready to hit it if Theo tried anything. But tears just slipped down his cheeks as he watched his kids playing with Pogo on the lawn. “I heard Gertrude yell that she’d won through the window when I was leaving Golden Gardens. And I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I mean—she’s at the end of her life. She can barely remember who she is. She doesn’t really need the money. Not like we do.”

  He turned his burning gaze on Allison. “Ella is dying because I wasn’t smart enough to buy Apple stock when I was in college, back when it was less than a buck-fifty. Now it’s almost two hundred per share, can you believe that? I even had an Apple computer then—one of those iMacs that looked like a fish tank. I loved that thing. Why didn’t I buy stock? Why didn’t I major in something more useful than philosophy, so I could make more than a mail carrier’s salary? Why did Gertrude get lucky, and Ella didn’t? That’s not how things are supposed to work!”

  He staggered to his feet, sending a thrill of fear up Allison’s spine. She immediately hit the “call” button on her phone and raised it to her ear. When Theo saw the phone in her hand, he froze.

  “What’s up, Allison?” Kara asked when she picked up.

  “Can you meet me at Theo Curtis’s house? It’s urgent.” Allison could barely keep the tremble from her voice. She squinted at the house, but it didn’t have a number on the front. “Doug Fir Drive. Big moving truck out front.”

  “What’s going on?” Kara asked, but Allison ended the call. It was too complicated to explain over the phone, and Theo was moving again. At least this time, it was away from her.

  “Where are you going?” she asked. This time she couldn’t keep the fear suppressed and the words squeaked out. “You have to stay here until the police come.”

  He looked back over his shoulder at her and lifted the casserole a little. “I’m just putting this inside so Shadi and the kids can have it for dinner.” He looked over to where his children were throwing a ball for Pogo. They shrieked when the dog ran and brought it back again, and a shadow of sadness crossed Theo’s face.

  “You’re not trying to get away?”

  He shook his head. “You can come in if you want to make sure.”

  Allison was wary of the offer. He might be planning to whack her on the head with something and lock her in a closet—or worse—if she went inside. But on the other hand, he’d probably try to escape if she didn’t. He already had tickets for a flight to Iran that left in a matter of hours. If he was smart, he’d go inside, grab his passport and the tickets, then run out the back door and straight to the airport.

  She had to risk it. She pulled up Kara’s number again and, her thumb poised over the call button, followed him through the front door. At least this way, if Theo decided to make a move, she could push the button and Kara would hear whatever was going on.

  The front door opened to an L-shaped room that was completely empty of furniture.

  “Everything is in the truck. My parents are going to store it in their barn until we move back after Ella recovers from the transplant,” Theo explained. Then his face fell. He stood in the middle of the empty room staring at the dish in his hands. “I guess that’s not happening now. I’ll have to get a refund for the plane tickets so I can pay back the money.”

  Allison’s heart sank when she heard Ella’s name. She wouldn’t be able to have her operation now. “Maybe the kids and Shadi can still go without you?”

  “No, they can’t,” he said frankly, his expression dazed. “Even if they made the flight without being stopped, all our assets will be seized. Shadi would have no money to pay for a kidney, nothing to support the kids while Ella recovers. Even here, she’ll have nothing once I’m arrested. She’ll have to move in with my parents, I guess. I need to tell Shadi so she can prepare.”

  “Prepare for what, sweetheart?” Shadi poked her head out from the hallway that Allison assumed led to the bedrooms. She wore a
denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and her wavy black hair was piled up in a messy bun on top of her head. She smiled widely, the corners of her eyes crinkling, when she saw Allison. “Hi, Mrs. Rye! Sorry I can’t offer you some tea. All my dishes are in boxes. Would you like a cup of water?”

  “No, that’s fine,” Allison said, her stomach twisting. Shadi was being so hospitable to her when Allison was essentially there to take her husband away, along with any chance of Ella’s recovery.

  Shadi turned her attention back to Theo. “What did you want to tell me?”

  He swallowed and held up the casserole. “Mrs. Rye brought us dinner!” he said. He shot a look at Allison that begged her not to tell Shadi the real reason—not yet. Allison couldn’t blame him for chickening out.

  “Aren’t you sweet?! And here I thought we’d be stuck with cold pizza from last night.” Shadi beamed as she walked over and took the dish from Theo. “I’ll just put this in the kitchen and get the kids cleaned up to eat. Thank you so much!”

  “It was Myra’s idea,” Allison mumbled, ashamed to take credit for food that she’d made as a simple ruse to get inside Theo’s house. Now that she was there, a dog-poop bag clutched behind her like it contained a map to the Holy Grail rather than a dirty work glove, she didn’t feel very virtuous.

  “I’m going to take Mrs. Rye to visit Ella for a minute,” Theo said, and Shadi nodded her approval as she ducked into the kitchen.

  “Is it OK if I say goodbye to her?” Theo asked Allison under his breath. “I’m afraid that if I’m gone for a few years, she might—” He didn’t finish his sentence, but Allison knew what he meant. Ella might not make it a few more years, not if she had to stay here in the United States.

  She jerked her head in a single nod and followed him down the hall to the back bedroom—the master bedroom, she realized when they entered. A tiny girl that Allison recognized as Ella from her photo on the grocery store counters lay on a blanket in the center of an otherwise bare mattress, her arms and legs splayed out like a starfish. A tube ran from her belly to a dishwasher-sized machine on a cart next to the bed.

  “Hi Daddy!” Ella chirped.

  “Hi, baby! Usually we do her dialysis overnight,” Theo added quietly to Allison. “But we wanted to get it done before the flight tonight. It takes a few hours.”

  “Who’s that?” Ella pointed at Allison, who felt her cheeks redden.

  “That’s my friend.” Theo kneeled down on the floor beside the bed, resting his elbows on the mattress. “She came to say hi.”

  Allison lifted her hand in wave. “Hi, Ella.”

  Ella’s face brightened and she returned the wave. “Hi! Did you bring me any presents?”

  Allison shook her head guiltily, wishing she had something—even a sticker or a lollipop—in her purse.

  “She did—she brought us dinner, so it’s a present for everybody.” Theo leaned closer to Ella and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Listen to me for a minute, honey. I want you to hear something and remember it. Can you do that?”

  Ella nodded eagerly. “Is it a game?”

  “No—it’s real life.” He brushed her bangs back on her forehead and kissed her again. “I want you to remember that you’re a fighter, OK? However bad you feel, even if you want to give up, you remember that you have a strong body and a strong mind. That way even if I go away for a while, I will get to see your bright smile when I come back. I really need to see that smile, OK?”

  Allison’s throat tightened and she turned away from the pair so Ella wouldn’t see her crying. She could tell from Theo’s voice that he didn’t believe his own words—he knew Ella wouldn’t be smiling when he came back from jail, because without a new kidney, she only had months to live, not years. He wasn’t reassuring her—he was saying goodbye.

  “I’m going to give you some privacy. I’ll just be outside,” she murmured, and backed out of the bedroom. Theo shot her a grateful look before she closed the door. In the hallway, she leaned against the wall and bent double, clutching her stomach with one arm and pressing her other hand over her eyes, trying to sort out why she felt so terrible about turning Theo in to the police.

  She knew it was the right thing to do. He’d committed a crime that led to an even worse tragedy, so he needed to take responsibility for his actions, both the intentional theft and the accidental killing. He needed to pay for what he’d done.

  But—Allison couldn’t avoid the painful truth—the real person who would pay was little Ella, and she’d pay with her life. How in the world did the loss of a child balance out Gertrude’s death? A sob racked Allison’s chest and she gasped, trying to hold it in, so Shadi wouldn’t come into the hallway to investigate. Allison didn’t want to be the one to break the news to her that the family wasn’t going to Iran, that Ella wasn’t getting her kidney.

  “Kids! Dinnertime!” Shadi called. Then Pogo start barking at the top of his lungs outside, and Allison heard Shadi say, “Oh, hi, Officer Lee!”

  “Is Allison Rye here? I saw Pogo with the kids.” Kara’s voice filtered through the wall, and Allison jerked upright. Kara had arrived so quickly—of course she had; on the phone, Allison had said it was urgent, and Remembrance was a small town.

  Beside her in the hallway, Theo emerged from the bedroom, softly closing the door behind him. He stared ahead at the wall with distant eyes, his face lined and gray. He seemed to have aged ten years since she’d left him with Ella in the bedroom.

  “The police just got here,” Allison said, touching his arm gently.

  He nodded. “I’m ready.”

  But am I? Allison asked herself. She knew that as soon as she turned over the bag containing the glove to Kara, it would start a wheel of investigation that would quickly gather speed, ensuring Theo’s family would never make the flight to Iran. And without a trip to Iran, it almost surely meant little Ella’s life would end. Could Allison live with herself, knowing she had caused the death of an innocent child?

  She shouldn’t feel guilty, though. It’d be the police who caused Ella’s death, by preventing the family from traveling...or Theo, because of his criminal acts, Allison rationalized. It wasn’t fair to Gertrude to let him get away with her death, even if he hadn’t intended to hurt her. He might not be a murderer, but his actions took Gertrude’s life.

  Of course, Allison’s actions were going to take Ella’s life. She couldn’t shake the feeling that what she was doing might be worse than what Theo had done. The lump of guilt turned over in her stomach. Was there any alternative to turning him in? Her mind raced. She knew she didn’t have much time to make this decision.

  “They’re just in here with Ella,” she heard Shadi say, her voice echoing around the empty living room.

  Allison crammed the bag containing the glove into her purse and grabbed Theo’s arm. “Let me do the talking,” she hissed, just as Kara and Shadi came into the hallway. She dropped his arm and smiled widely. “Oh, hey, Kara! We were just saying hi to Ella.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re OK.” Kara frowned slightly. “I’m surprised, actually. I thought something was really wrong.”

  Allison waved her hand breezily. “Oh, no, everything’s fine.” In her peripheral vision, Allison saw Theo look at her sharply, but she kept her eyes on Kara.

  “Why did you call me, then?” Kara crossed her arms, her frown deepening as she looked Allison up and down and then, her eyes narrowed, turned her scrutiny on Theo. He took a step backward toward Ella’s door and put his hand on the knob.

  Shadi looked worriedly at her husband. “Honey? What’s going on? Is Ella OK?”

  Before he could answer, four children and a bouncing terrier clustered around the doorway between the hall and the living room. Pogo spotted Kara right away and positioned himself between her and the kids, his upper lip curling up to show his teeth.

  The oldest child, a boy with a curly mop-top, tugged on his mother’s arm. “Can we keep him? Please, Mama?”

  Shadi looked down at he
r son and affectionately ruffled his hair. “No, sweetheart. We’re taking a big trip and we can’t bring any pets.”

  Theo opened his mouth to speak, but Allison cut him off before he could tell Shadi that the trip wasn’t going to happen. “Pets have to have special airplane tickets and visit the veterinarian before they travel,” she explained to the little boy.

  “Why am I here, Allison?” Kara asked impatiently, taking a step toward her in the hallway. “What’s so urgent?”

  “Well...” Allison drew out the word as long as she could as she frantically tried to come up with an excuse. Then her eyes fell on Pogo and his stiff posture as he watched Kara’s approach. “You know how Pogo acts like this around you? Well, I realized that he would like you a lot better if he saw you in a different context. You’re always like this”—Allison motioned between herself and Kara—“so he thinks that’s what you’re all about. I thought maybe if he watched you playing with the Curtis kids, he’d see another side of you. He really likes them, and sometimes dogs can change their opinion of someone if they see people they like treating a person they don’t a different way.”

  “And this is urgent because...?” Kara raised an eyebrow.

  “You said you were lonely, and a dog is a great companion, and Pogo really needs to find a home...” Allison trailed off, realizing how lame she sounded. She added, “And the Curtises are leaving tonight, so this is your last chance to play with the kids.”

  Kara stood there a minute in silence, looking at Pogo. He returned her wary expression, bravely squaring up his tiny frame. Kara’s face softened and a smile tugged the corner of her mouth. “I guess it’s worth a shot. Let’s go play outside.”

  She led the children back out into the living room, and Pogo followed eagerly behind them. As soon as the kids and Kara were outside, Theo turned to Allison, his expression dazed. “Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?” Shadi asked, and Theo jerked his head up to look at her, as though he’d forgotten she was there with them in the hallway. “I think it’s a nice idea for Officer Lee to have a pet. I know when I moved here, it was hard to get to know people. If I hadn’t had you to talk to, I would have gone out of my mind.”