Destined to Reap (Reaping Fate Book 3)

by Kinsley Burke

  “Why doesn’t she speak?”

  My shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Not certain. A ghost at work thinks it’s because her death was by hanging.”

  “The throat must hurt from that one.” Aunt Kate nodded.

  “Except it was her body that was injured. This is her spirit following me around.”

  “How did she give ya the book?”

  How much did my aunt need to know about my lawbreaking ways? I determined that would be a big, fat, zilch. I didn’t want to give her any ideas. I constantly had to bail her out of jail as it was. “Long story.”

  Her eyes brightened. “I love—”

  “Not today.” I held up a placating hand. “We need to figure out more about how I’m supposed to defeat Satan and protect Earth. I told you I’ve decided he’s trying to change the directional vortex for the Hell to Earth portals so he can relocate.”

  “Ya know? The more you talk about this vortex thing, the more I realize I don’t understand a word you say, young one.”

  Plopping my chin onto my hands, I peered at her. “I really don’t either. I just know there’s a lodestone that can change the supernatural vortex. Part of me thinks I need to find this, but that would be bad, right? We don’t want the portals changed.”

  “What’s a lodestone?”

  “I looked it up online. It’s a magnetized piece of magnetite.”

  “So we need to find a rock?”

  “A mineral.”

  “That looks like a rock.”

  “I guess?”

  “Well, young one, we’ve got our work cut out for us. There are lots of rocks on this earth.” Aunt Kate flipped open Anna’s book. “Hopefully this will…”

  I leaned forward, and my jaw dropped. “Aww… crap. That’s not in English. Why the hell is it not written in English?”

  “The title and foreword are.” Aunt Kate flipped through the pages. “The rest of it appears to be in Irish.”

  I studied the letters on the pages. “Based on what I’ve seen in Grandma Maura’s journal, this is Old Irish.” Well, shit. Luck had already shown her dislike for me, but now, after the events of the last few weeks, she was outright declaring war. My shoulders slumped. “Why isn’t this translated? Old Irish isn’t spoken anymore. Who’s the idiot that published a book almost no one can read?”

  “Huh.” Aunt Kate closed the cover. “This is unexpected. Just when ya think you’ve got somethin’, you’ve got nothin’.”

  “Story of my life.”

  “Good thing I came across Eric Harris’s number last night.”

  “Who?”

  “The man I told ya about, the one I met at a fundraiser last spring. He claimed to know a bit of Old Irish.”

  “Oh, yes… I recall you mentioning him. Tell me again where you found his phone number?”

  Aunt Kate’s gaze darted to the table. “In a box under…”

  “I didn’t hear the last part.”

  “In a box of keepsakes underneath my bed.”

  “Do you mean your bed here? Because you said last night…”

  Her hot gaze snapped up to meet mine. “Ya know darn well I meant my own bed.”

  “The one you’re not supposed to be visiting?”

  “I needed more clothes. A woman’s got to have her clothes. And her shoes! They refused to take me by my house. Claimed that Phillip could be there, or have left a trap to figure out where I am.”

  “Aunt Kate, that’s a valid concern. They’ve placed protection wards around this house but none at—”

  “Don’t ya be worryin’ now. I took my knife and stuffed cotton into my ears so I couldn’t hear that donkey butt’s voice should he’d have come around. But just in case, I took along some of the Dutch letter cookies I’d practiced baking yesterday as a peace offering.”

  “What are those for?”

  “To make his”—her voice dropped to another whisper—“dick turn flaky and fall off, of course.”

  I grinned. No one could ever define a woman scorned as well as my Aunt Kate.

  Chapter 21

  Five whole minutes were left to spare when I walked into Fated Match. No fire-breathing Maude stood beside my desk, perched in too-high patent leather heels and draped in a cloud of Chanel perfume, waiting for a greet and fire—cutting off all biweekly funding to Checking Account. Which also meant there was no vigilant she-devil eye fixated on the clock as an eagerness rolled off my boss’s highly pampered skin in waves, at the ready to dole out retribution if my own heel-clad foot crossed the threshold even a second past my required receptionist duty start time. Not that tardiness would be a factor if I was no longer employed.

  I took Maude’s absence as a sign… one that meant my booty was spared another day from the unemployment line. Figuratively, at least, because wasn’t the paperwork filled out online these days?

  Celebrations would have commenced—the kind where said booty would be doing a lot of shaking and moving in ecstatic I-still-have-a-job joy. All in beat to music heard only by my ears. Giddiness at the acknowledgment of continued pay—if only my line of vision wasn’t flooded by the sight of two huddled ghosts. Neither who were named HG—the only rational spirit of the lot. The two spirits currently encroaching on my workspace were wearing deerstalker hats while peering at old-fashioned eye pieces held in ashen-colored hands. Whatever it was that had captured Miss Prim and Margaret’s attention for them to believe this Sherlock Holmes-esque getup was prerequisite dress wear, I could guarantee it wasn’t anywhere on the side of good.

  “You’re late,” Miss Prim said, her head turning in my direction upon the sound of my entrance. “We’ve been waiting all morning for you to arrive.”

  One glance at the two expectant faces, and I made a bee-line to my receptionist chair. Face deliberately turned away. Eyes zooming in on the white coffee mug sitting on top of my desk that said Undercover Wine in decorative text.

  No telling how long the mug would last—at least within eyesight of one pearl-cladded boss—but I had convinced Maude that some clients might prefer coffee over the usual offering of Champagne and mimosas. The look on the cosmetically induced wrinkle-free skin at my proposal had left my mind replaying my spoken words to determine if arsenic, drugs, nukes, or thrift store had been included in my sentences.

  They hadn’t.

  Motives for a work-issued coffee machine were the pure definition of selfishness. Mr. Coffee at home had an annoying tendency to take unauthorized days off, leaving me in a caffeine-deprived grouchy mess. Maude still preferred me supplying her Java Addiction habit like the dealer she aspired me to be, but for me personally, I was quite content with the filtered brew I made myself. The kind that held one descriptive word: free. Brown liquid of wake-me-up that didn’t cost me a cent.

  “You changed your password again,” Miss Prim said, as if I wasn’t ignoring her. “I had a very important update to my blog last night, but I wasn’t able to access it since you locked me out.”

  Miss Prim had a Hot Detective Butts blog she posted on Tumbler. More than four hundred faithful readers following a dead woman’s musing over the derrières of police officers. Somehow the meddlesome ghost had figured out my constant change of passwords, inputting her updates by night and leaving me fearful of what I’d log into by day. Miss Prim was pretty savvy with working her way through the Internet for having died prior to the invention of the World Wide Web, but she was much more thick headed when it came to understanding that the pictures of men she plastered as desktop wallpaper were a) not real cops—the skimpiness of those uniforms not sanctioned by any legit police department and b) malware often hitchhiked with her downloads. I was sick of having to clean out my computer. Now, hopefully, MisSPriM1027! would be the one password that would keep the ghost stumped.

  “Are you even listening?” Miss Prim poofed from her chair and materialized behind me, leaning over my shoulder. “It’s urgent that I access your computer.”

  “Are you attempting to watch me type in my pass
word?”

  “Our password,” Miss Prim said. “We share the computer, and therefore, we share the password.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “You’re that desperate to update the Hottest Ass list?”

  “Butt. It’s Hottest Butts list. But no, that isn’t why I need online.”

  “To write a poem about a detective’s fine butt?”

  “No.”

  “To reorganize all the pictures of cop bums you’ve received from your followers so they can be posted to the blog?”

  Miss Prim stomped a foot. “Are you letting me use your computer for very important business or not?”

  “What kind of business?” I asked.

  “Margaret and I have a case.”

  “Wait—what?” I looked at the other ghost, who was busy nodding her head in agreement. “I don’t understand. What do you mean by case?”

  “A murder investigation,” Miss Prim said. “What other type of case is there?”

  “Lots. Why are you investigating a murder?”

  “It is our job to do so.” Miss Prim glanced behind her. “Isn’t that correct, Margaret?”

  “Yes.” The ghost nodded again. “Our first investigation.”

  “Wait a second.” I leaned forward in my chair, memories flooding back. “That stupid detective agency you stole those business cards for?”

  “Hey!” Miss Prim huffed. “The cards were donated, not stolen.”

  I cut the spirit a stern look—one complete with narrowed eyes and you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me stare.

  Miss Prim’s gaze shot downward to the floor. “Perhaps the print shop owner didn’t realize he was donating.”

  My eyebrows rose in a ya think? gesture. “Who hired you to solve this case?”

  “Uh, well…”

  “We need a portfolio,” Margaret said.

  “Why?”

  “To have a record of solving crimes, so ghosts will hire us.”

  “I still don’t understand.” I looked between the two, both who were nodding as if this entire conversation was making logical sense. Except it wasn’t. “You need a portfolio to be hired, but you need to be hired to start a portfolio? Who has hired you for this job?”

  “No one,” Miss Prim said. “Kiara? Why are you rubbing your head like that?”

  Well, hell… I’d apparently picked up one of Wilcox’s gestures—annoying gestures, to be exact. Except everything about him was annoying at that precise moment. Not thinking about an overbearing jerk… not thinking about… Crap. Yes, I was. My hands dropped onto my desk as I calmly peered up at Miss Prim—if eye twitching and tightened fists illustrated a calm demeanor, that was. “Please explain why you are working a murder investigation when no ghost has hired you to do so.”

  “We read an article in the newspaper about a murder and decided to investigate. It can be added to our portfolio once solved.”

  “After we have something established in our portfolio, ghosts will begin hiring us to solve their cases,” Margaret added in a just-so-you-understand tone of voice.

  “All right then.” I nodded, deciding it was in my best interest to let the conversation drop. “Dead guy listed in a newspaper. Makes sense.”

  “Woman. Dead woman,” Miss Prim corrected. “Now I need to look on the Internet for additional information that may provide leads for the case.”

  “What details do you already have?” I asked. Best Interest be damned, curiosity won over. As usual. Stupid inquiring mind that always wanted to be in the know.

  “Her name was Maddie Dunlap, and she was found in the alley dumpster off Ninth Street yesterday.”

  “We saw her attempting to purchase ice cream last night,” Margaret said.

  “She was in denial about her death.” Miss Prim shrugged. “It happens sometimes, but she wasn’t being very nice to the shop owner. Best it was that he couldn’t hear her complaints. She’d said some pretty awful things when he wouldn’t serve her.”

  “Did you ask her how she died and who killed her?” I quizzed.

  The room grew silent as both ghosts stared at me before Miss Prim asked, “Why would we do that?”

  “It wouldn’t be an investigation if she simply told us who the murderer was,” Margaret said.

  “She may not know.” Miss Prim pointed at her friend. “Margaret doesn’t remember who killed her. I wouldn’t want to traumatize Maddie so soon after her death. Margaret and I will solve her murder case, and it will bring her a sense of peace once we inform her of the killer’s identity.”

  Before I could beg Best Interest for forgiveness and tell Curiosity to shove it, HG and Hellhound materialized. The beast’s tail wagged in wide, swiping motions as he panted eagerly up at me.

  “I located it.” HG’s chest puffed out in pride.

  “What did you find?” Miss Prim asked.

  “The safe box, of course.”

  “This isn’t another one of your lies?”

  HG’s mouth tightened. “I have not lied.”

  “You did. You—”

  “Quiet.” I stood and waited for all eyes to focus on me. “You found Todd Ashton’s safe deposit box? Are you certain?”

  “Yes.” HG nodded.

  “If you’ve found the box, prove it by showing us the contents.” Miss Prim crossed her arms and stared at HG, a hard look etching her normally soft features.

  “I can’t,” HG said, ignoring Miss Prim’s snort. “Kiara will need to be the one to look inside the box.”

  I studied the ghost. “What’s the plan? How did you locate it?”

  “While searching through all published photos of Todd taken in the past year, I recognized a woman he took to an event here in town last June. She’s a manager at one of the banks.” He slid a side glance at Miss Prim. “I like your new password, by the way. Very fitting.”

  Miss Prim gaped first at HG, and then at me. “He knows the password, and I don’t? How… when?” Her gaze swung back and forth between the computer and HG’s face before finally settling on the ghost. “When did you log onto Kiara’s computer?”

  “After you left last night.”

  “Why didn’t you…” Miss Prim turned a demanding glare my way. “He didn’t know what a blog was yet he researched Todd on the Internet?”

  HG scratched the back of his neck at the mention of the blog, no doubt his previous insistence on being clueless to all late twentieth and twenty-first-century technology shortly after his arrival to Fated Match weighing on his mind. His gaze shifted away from Miss Prim. “I hacked into the bank records and found a box rented to an Allen Bryant. Todd’s middle name was Allen, and he lived on Bryant Street in San Francisco.”

  Eyes widened before glancing at the door. My pulse pounded as I waited for the feds to storm in. Any second orange would be my new color. I didn’t like orange.

  “They can’t trace the IP address,” HG said, correctly reading the oh shit! look I didn’t require a mirror to know was plastered across my face. HG caught my eye. “Trust me.”

  “You’d better be right,” I said. “If I go to jail, you’re sitting in that cell with me.”

  “I have a plan.”

  “Are you certain Allen Bryant is Todd Ashford?”

  “The mailing address for the box rental is under the bank manager brother’s home address. The brother’s name isn’t Allen Bryant.”

  “Would you like to work for Ghostly Hunt Services, Inc.? We are in need of—”

  “Margaret!” Miss Prim hissed, jabbing the ghost in the side with an intentionally placed elbow.

  “As I was saying,” Margaret continued. “We are in need of investigative ghosts who maintain strong sleuthing skills. You’d work for free and the hours are random. We’ve taken on our first case. Are you in?”

  “As the other owner in the business, I need to inform you that we’re not currently hiring.” Miss Prim said.

  “We are. Look at him.” Margaret gestured to HG. “He knows how to work a computer, and he has Kiara’s password
to log onto hers.”

  A wounded gaze shot my way, and I held my hands up in innocent protest. “Do not look at me. I have nothing to do with this detective business of yours. All I want to know is the plan to access Todd’s safe deposit box.”

  “Simple,” HG said. “You will go to the bank and rent your own box.”

  “With what? Doesn’t it cost money to rent?”

  “I overheard them tell a customer it would be a fifty-dollar annual fee. How much is that in 1910 currency?”

  “I don’t know.” I gulped, Mind sorting through my current bank balance and thinking about impending bills. “All due at once?”

  “How will Kiara renting a box provide her with the contents of Todd’s box?” Miss Prim asked.

  “Kiara has a key to Todd’s box.” HG nodded at me and waited until I’d pulled out the key from its safe spot inside my purse before continuing.” When Kiara rents a box, both she and a bank representative will have to use their keys to open the box door. Kiara will then be left alone inside the vault to place her items. The bank representatives always return the bank keys to this one cabinet, and the cabinet is never locked. Once Kiara is left alone, and the representative replaces the key, I will take the key to Kiara inside the vault, and she can open Todd’s box.”

  A sense of anticipation warmed me. Was it possible? Could HG’s plan work? It sounded plausible.”

  “Your plan will not work,” Miss Prim said.

  “What do you know?” HG turned to face her.

  “The best plans are more elaborate. That’s how it’s done in the movies.”

  “This isn’t the movies.”

  “When do we go?” I asked.

  “The bank’s open.” HG shrugged. “How about now?”

  I flashed a glance at Maude’s vacant office. “Why not? Meet you there.”

  Chapter 22

  The memo stating that life—mine specifically—would never, ever go my way finally hit my desk with a small explosion that echoed off the white walls in bold proclamation. A statement of fact, and one I was quite sick of. Not that Fate gave a flying flip about my wants or feelings because before the purse-gathering and following after three ghosts to heist a bank could commence, Maude Taggart entered in a brisk stride through the front door of Fated Match.