Witch of a Neighbor (Witch Reborn Book 6)

by Belinda White

  That brought up another good point.

  “You know, now that I think about it, that kind of pokes a hole in the whole Morgan trying to break in theory.”

  “How so?”

  “According to Patience, Kelly Wilson had pretty much cleaned out the house of anything worth anything. All that’s left is just junk. And Patience hasn’t officially moved yet, so her valuable stuff would still be at her old house, wouldn’t it?”

  “One would certainly think so, yes.” Orville gave me a grim smile. “So that just leaves one very big question.”

  “What was she really doing there?”

  Chapter 8

  We sat and pondered that last question for a bit. Neither of us came any closer to actually answering it, though. Much the pity.

  After a few minutes of silence, Orville turned to me. “You know what? I could eat.”

  I glanced at the clock. Yup, right on time. My man’s stomach had a pretty fixed schedule when it came to time to eat.

  The clock also told me that I didn’t really have time to prepare anything other than sandwiches and still meet that scheduled lunchtime deadline.

  “How does Clucky’s Palace sound?” I asked.

  He grinned at me. “Like a little piece of heaven.”

  Orville stood, but I hesitated. Finally, I broke. “You think we should invite Patience along? It doesn’t feel right, leaving her alone over there, what with things being what they are.”

  “Unfortunately, I think she really needs to be there while the police go through that house. Patty needs to know if there was something inside that would cause Morgan to try to break in. Right now, I’m thinking not. But she needs to cross that possibility off the list all the same.”

  I took a deep breath. “You think maybe Baby Pearl and I should go and keep her company while they do that?”

  He looked at me for a long minute. “I’m going to take it that means Patience is safe from any Karma spell you might have been planning.”

  I nodded. “For now. Can’t really fault her for wanting the place as bad as I did, now can I?” Even if I didn’t know why that was so. A conversation for later, for sure.

  Orville was scrubbing his chin. “Well, you could, but I think the best use of our time would be to try to figure out what Morgan was doing there and see if we can’t give Patty a hand at wrapping this up quickly. Patience was probably wanting to move in this week, and with her back yard now being a crime scene...”

  His words trailed off.

  I blinked at him. “And us pigging out at Clucky’s Palace is gonna do that?”

  He smiled. “Well, no. That part of things is just to strengthen us for the meeting I thought we’d have afterward with Freddy Black. If anyone knew why she was at the old Wilson estate, it would be him, wouldn’t it?”

  There was that. It still didn’t feel right, taking off and just leaving her all alone. But then, it also wasn’t like the two of us were fast friends, now was it?

  Baby Pearl wandered into the room and looked up at me.

  Okay. Maybe the two of us weren’t, but she and Baby Pearl were. That made a world of difference right there.

  I picked her up and took her into our apartment for a quick diaper change. I knew that would give us a bit of privacy. Orville generally disappeared when it came time for changing. Typical man.

  Just as I’d thought, he quickly decided that he needed a bottle of water from the kitchen. Then he disappeared. I knew it wouldn’t last long, though. I had to make this fast.

  Once I had Baby Pearl laid out on our bed for changing, I looked her in the eyes. “Okay, so I know you’re in there. Patience is going through a lot right now. Part of me thinks we should send Orville out to lunch, and you and I should go and keep Patience company. But Orville has a good point, too. It will most likely help Patience the most if we just find out what the devil happened and get it set straight.”

  Well, as much as we could. I mean, even a witch can’t bring someone back to life once they’d been murdered. I shivered. Wouldn’t much want to, even if I could. Some things magic just wasn’t meant to do. One of them was trying to force someone to love someone they didn’t. That was Kelly Wilson’s whole beef with me, actually.

  But another thing magic wasn’t meant to do was bring people back from the dead. Not for a minute, not for an hour, and most definitely not for a lifetime. You just never knew what might come back with them, for one. For another, well, the thought of it just gave me the creeps.

  And yes, there had been witches in the past who went against the laws of magic. Not once had it ended well.

  I heard wings flapping behind me and turned to find Bridget flying into the room to land on her bedroom post. Most of the daylight hours, she was allowed to roam the house as she wanted. As long as she didn’t leave me messes to clean up in awkward places, that would continue. She knew that, too.

  Once settled on her perch, her feathered head cocked to the side as she looked at me. “Divide and conquer,” Bridget croaked.

  I sighed and looked down at Baby Pearl. “You’re going on three years old. You could very well talk to me yourself, you know.”

  For that, all I got was a grin and a coo. Yeah, I kind of thought Mom was going to milk this baby thing to the bone. “And while we’re on the subject.” I held up the new diaper. “This needs to stop too. I seem to recall you telling me that I was fully potty trained at two years old. You don’t want to fall too far behind me, do you?”

  Her grin faded, and her expression turned thoughtful. At least I’d given her something to think about.

  But back to the matter at hand. “What do you mean, divide and conquer? You think we should send Orville on and us go to Patience then?”

  Her little head shook, and her finger reached out and pointed to the phone on the nightstand. “Call Mom.”

  And no, the words still didn’t come from the child’s mouth. I looked at the phone and then back at her. “Wouldn’t that be kind of hard to do what with you being here and all?”

  Bridget made that choking sound that sounds like she’s hacking up some kind of furry feather ball. Or dying.

  In other words, she—and Baby Pearl—were laughing at me.

  Then I got it.

  I finished the change and picked up the phone to call the shop. Come to find out, Patience was a bit of a regular now that Baby Pearl was spending more time there. Kimberly had no qualms about her going to stay with Patience while Orville and I ran some errands in town.

  Hanging up the phone, I turned back to Baby Pearl.

  Just how much else was I missing out on in her life?

  ORVILLE AND I DID A quick drop-in at Patience’s new to her house. She was more than fine with watching Baby Pearl for a bit. I’d given the whole crime scene thing some thought. Patience and I both agreed that as long as they stayed inside, it really wouldn’t be an issue.

  We left her a car seat, just in case she needed to go anywhere, and made sure that she had both our cellphone numbers in case she needed us too. Finally, she looked at Baby Pearl and the two of them shared a laugh. It was rather uncanny.

  Then Patience looked back at me and Orville. “I’ve got this. You two go on. If something comes up that the two of us can’t handle, we’ll call you. I promise.”

  We were walking out to the car when Orville turned to me. “You’re really okay leaving Pearl here alone?”

  I knew what he was asking. Mental illness sometimes ran in families and Patience’s daughter was definitely mentally ill. But then, I didn’t think her problem stemmed from a family gene. At least, not in the way Orville was most likely thinking.

  I thought that it was the sight that had driven the girl bonkers. Some people could handle it. Others couldn’t. Trixie had been one that couldn’t. Patience seemed to be one that could.

  At least, she’d been alive a fairly long time, being around our age in years, and to my knowledge, she hadn’t killed a single person. Let alone two with a try at a third. />
  That had to say something, right?

  But what I said was... “Patty and her department are going to be there for a while. Do you really think Baby Pearl would be in any danger with them hanging around?”

  He was quiet, but finally, he shook his head. “No. I guess not.” Then he smiled. “They do seem to get along well, don’t they?”

  “Oh, yes. Definitely.” In fact, so well, he had absolutely no idea.

  Clucky’s Palace was filled to the brim with a half-hour wait for a table. Yeah, like my man was going to wait thirty minutes before eating. Not with his rigid food schedule.

  I looked at the hostess. “Do you all still do carryout?”

  She nodded, and Orville’s face perked up. Then it fell again. Most likely thinking we’d have to put in our order and then wait for the food to be cooked. Still take about the same amount of time if that were the case.

  My man loves his fried chicken. He had his stomach and heart all primed and ready to go for fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and mini corn on the cob. All of which Clucky’s Palace had on their everyday buffet. And that wasn’t even talking about their separate dessert buffet. The dessert one was shorter, but it still held a vast variety of melt-in-your-mouth options.

  To go from all of that to the thought of a hamburger and fries from a drive-through? Let’s just say there was a good reason why Orville was looking like a kid that had just learned the truth about Santa Claus. He takes his food very seriously.

  I patted his hand and smiled at the hostess. “Can we get two to-go containers, please? Extra-large?”

  She nodded, and within a minute, Orville and I were at that buffet loading down our little plastic boxes.

  Being nice, and as the money came out of our joint account anyway, I treated for lunch. Most of that was because Orville wasn’t about to let go of those filled boxes.

  We fed the meter that we were parked at and glanced down the street to Morgan’s office. We could see it well from here. Which made this as good a place to eat as any.

  “Morgan and Freddy didn’t have an office girl, did they?” Orville asked.

  I looked at him and grunted. “You just assuming anyone that does office work is female? Men do that kind of thing, too, you know.”

  He swallowed and nodded slowly. “Point taken.” He took another bite before trying again. “So, did Morgan and Freddy have anyone helping them out in the office?”

  That was better. Orville could be a little too old-fashioned with his gender roles sometimes. It was something I was trying to help him with.

  “Not that I know of, no.”

  He blinked at me for a few seconds but didn’t say a word.

  The rest of the meal passed rather silently.

  I just might be getting on his nerves a bit with the gender role broadening lessons. Still. The man needed to learn.

  Didn’t he?

  Chapter 9

  The office hadn’t changed much since I’d last been there. But since that was only yesterday, that only stood to reason.

  Freddy Black was sitting at his desk, fingers on the keyboard and eyes on the monitor screen, when we walked in. The very picture of a man hard at work.

  One that didn’t much care for the work he was doing, mind you. Freddy didn’t look happy.

  Then again, the man had just lost his partner and his ex-girlfriend, too. Maybe they’d remained closer than I’d thought.

  “I’m rather surprised you’re open today,” Orville told him when he glanced up at us. “You do know it’s okay to take time off in these circumstances, right?”

  Freddy nodded. “Normally, and in most jobs, yes.” He frowned. “That doesn’t tend to apply in the real estate business. Especially in a small office like ours.” He hesitated, and his breath caught. “Or I guess I should say like mine, now, shouldn’t I?”

  Orville glanced around the office. It wasn’t much in the way of a grand inheritance, if you asked me. Definitely not something worth killing a woman over.

  Then again, I knew Orville would be the first to tell me that people had been known to kill for far less. I knew that to be a fact, too.

  “So, with Morgan gone, this whole operation belongs to you?” Orville asked. “What about her brother over at the hardware store?"

  Freddy rubbed his cheek. “Don't worry, Mike will come out okay. Morgan and I had business insurance. The policy will pay Mike the amount Morgan and I had agreed upon to buy out her part of the business.”

  “Will you keep it running?” I asked. I mean, it didn’t appear to be doing a bang-up business, and the office was in prime real estate for Wind’s Crossing. He could probably get a pretty penny for the building.

  His eyebrows pulled together as he looked at me. “What else would I do?” He waved a hand over his desk. “This is just about all I know. The last few years haven’t been easy, building this place up, but Morgan and I were making a decent enough living.” He sniffed. “Of course, I know it will be much harder now, on my own.”

  The man must have still had strong feelings for Morgan. He wasn’t acting all that much like an ex.

  “Do you know any reason why anyone would want to hurt Morgan?” Orville asked gently.

  Freddy shook his head. “No.” Then he hesitated. “Well, I mean, there were people who didn’t like Morgan, but none that I know of that would think murder was an acceptable answer to their problems with her.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  Freddy sighed and leaned back in his chair. “The usual, really. Money. People thought our commission structure was rather high.” He bristled. “Normally we could talk them down from that. I mean six percent is pretty standard in the field. That wasn’t hard to prove, either.”

  “Anyone in particular have a problem with that lately?” I asked. Yes. My witch’s intuition was firing up, thank you very much.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Kelly Wilson. She didn’t understand that a contract was a contract. The six percent isn’t waived just because the buyer comes to us and not the other way around. Kelly thought we should cut our commission by more than half.” He shook his head. “No way would Morgan agree to that.”

  “And Kelly signed the contract agreeing to that amount?” Orville asked.

  “She did.”

  Interesting that. I was rather betting that Kelly hadn’t bothered herself to read the bloody thing before signing. That will almost always come back to bite a person in the heinie. An expensive lesson to learn, though. And not one that would go down well with Kelly, I was sure.

  “How has Morgan been lately?” I asked. “Anything seem to be bothering her?”

  Freddy hesitated. “Well, now that you mention it, yes. She hasn’t really been herself the last week or so.”

  Orville glanced at me, then back at Freddy. “How so?”

  His shoulders slumped. “She seemed convinced that someone was following her. She was distracted and moody. Kind of jumpy, if you know what I mean. Almost paranoid.”

  “Why did she think someone was following her?” Orville asked. “And did she think she knew who it was?”

  “According to Morgan, it was more of a feeling of being watched. She said she didn’t have a clue why, but...” His words trailed off.

  “I’m going to need you to finish that statement, you know,” Orville said quietly. He tended to forget that he wasn’t Sheriff any longer. The thing is, that worked out okay most times because others tended to forget that little fact too.

  Freddy looked at him for a minute. “I think she was feeling guilty about something. And no. I don’t know what that something was.”

  Why did I not believe him?

  “Do you remember when she started acting... not herself?” I asked.

  His eyes closed for a minute, then he glanced down at his desk calendar. He tapped on a date. “Two weeks ago come Wednesday.” He paused. “I remember because she kept looking over her shoulder on our way down to the title company for a closing. She’d never done
that before that I could recall.”

  The witch’s intuition flared up again.

  I thought I just might have a clue as to why that date was important.

  ORVILLE ASKED A COUPLE more questions, but I was already zoning out by then. As soon as we made it to the car, I was opening my briefcase and digging through it.

  That got a raised eyebrow from Orville. “Witch’s intuition?”

  “Yup.” I rifled through the paperwork until I came up with one of the files we’d gotten from Patty’s office. It didn’t take long to find it. “Two weeks ago, and the night before Morgan started acting ‘paranoid’ as Freddy called it, the Jones house was robbed.”

  Orville looked thoughtful. “That’s the one with the guitars, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” I gave the file a close once over, but nothing new jumped out at me. There wasn’t a lot of information there. The same as all the other robberies. No sign of forced entry and only the few items taken. Basically, the guitar and its paraphernalia.

  That’s what didn’t really make sense. Why go to the risk of robbing a place if you were only after one thing? Why not make it more worth your while and pick up more while you were there? The risk would be the same, wouldn’t it? Why not try for the trip to be profitable?

  “And just the one guitar was stolen, right? Didn’t Patty say it wasn’t even the most expensive one in his collection?”

  “That’s right. It was a valuable instrument, but there were guitars in that same room that were worth a lot more according to the file.”

  He shook his head. “That just makes no sense.”

  “Agreed. Was Morgan really that bad of a burglar?”

  Orville shrugged. “It certainly looks that way. But her business isn’t doing all that badly, you know. She and Freddy might not be exactly cleaning up, but they both have money in the bank and aren’t having any trouble paying their bills. They even pay off their credit card account at the end of every month. No financial trouble at all. So why stoop to burglary in the first place?”