Familiar Magic (Tabby Kitten Mystery Series Book 1)

by Constance Barker

  With that, she wheeled around and stormed off.

  Chapter 12

  As she carried the two hot drinks in her hands, Thea used her back to push open the door of the police station. For a girl who really had no business being there, she was rather casual with her demeanor. Even better was the fact that no one seemed to notice her as she passed by and made her way towards Blaine’s office. She nodded and smiled at the people she brushed shoulders with, wishing them good mornings as she went. A little kindness can go a long way.

  The detective in question was reading the morning paper when he heard a knock on his office door. Looking up, he raised an eyebrow to see Thea under the doorway.

  “Morning,” she said, crossing the room and holding out the coffee for him to take. “I got you a little something along the way.”

  “You bought me coffee?” Blaine asked, staring at the drink before accepting it nonetheless. “That’s awfully kind of you.”

  “You’re lucky that I’m an awfully kind person,” Thea replied, taking the seat across from his desk. Blaine smiled. “Besides, I needed to talk to you.”

  Something told him that she was up to no good again. Thinking back to her appearance at the park near the gazebo, he had an inkling that she was trying to learn more about the case.

  Regardless of that, he was still happy to see her. He took a small sip from his coffee, evaluating its taste. Thea managed to get his favorite order right, somehow.

  “I just wanted to let you in on what happened to me recently. It was kinda weird, if I’m being honest,” she began, setting aside her drink to cool down. “To keep the story short, Ashley Smith threatened to call the police on me.”

  Blaine spluttered, coughing into his fist. “She what?”

  Thea nodded. “I was with my friends at a local café when she came up to us and threatened to do so. It took me by surprise, that’s for sure. Since Rebecca was also starting up her own arts and crafts store before she was killed, she implied that I was capable of killing the competition.”

  After hearing that, Blaine had to subconsciously remind himself to shut his mouth. It was left slightly ajar, taking in everything that Thea said. Clearing his throat, he recomposed himself.

  “Do you know why she would threaten you like that? That’s a serious accusation to make,” Blaine pointed out. “She shouldn’t go around throwing around unfounded claims.”

  Thea knew exactly why Ashley was treating her this badly, but she couldn’t just tell Blaine why. She was pretty sure that she had committed a crime, trespassing into Ashley’s property. Not that the woman had any solid evidence that Thea did such a thing, but still. She wasn’t going to fess up. Girl’s got to have some secrets.

  “I have no clue why,” Thea said, shrugging. She was lying through her teeth. “But I just thought it was something you should know.”

  “You really need to be careful with this case, Thea,” Blaine commented softly. “I think you should stay out of this one.”

  “Why?” she asked, leaning back into her chair. “I’m not interfering with the investigation, am I? I’m just trying to help out a little bit.”

  “I understand that, but we haven’t even found the murderer. Whoever killed Rebecca is still wandering the streets of Ardenville freely, and that’s dangerous. Not to mention...” Blaine began, before ending his sentence with a sigh. He was really about to disclose more of the case than he should have, wasn’t he? “We haven’t even found the murder weapon yet.”

  Thea knitted her eyebrows together in confusion. “But isn’t that the first thing the police officers would find in a case like this?”

  “Usually, yeah,” Blaine conceded. “But we haven’t found it. It wasn’t at the scene. All we know is that it was a knife of some kind, since Rebecca was stabbed. It was pretty sharp, too. Like a scalpel.”

  “A scalpel...” Thea mumbled to herself, wondering what kind of person would be carrying around a scalpel with them as they went about their day-to-day life.

  “But that’s besides the point. You’re putting yourself in danger by sneaking around without anyone to help you. You don’t even have a police escort with you.”

  She laughed under her breath, raising her gaze to meet his. “You’re sounding a little overprotective. You know I can take care of myself, right?”

  Although he tried his best to hide it, he couldn’t stop the way the tip of his ears turned pink. He ducked his gaze, which made Thea giggle.

  “You’re right, though. I’ll lay low for a while,” she reassured him, pushing herself out of the chair. “But if I see anything suspicious, I’ll have no choice but to investigate.”

  “Just be careful, Thea,” Blaine called out to her as she made her way out.

  As she was leaving, she bumped shoulders with another officer who was making his way into Blaine’s office. Curious, she stopped in her tracks and decided to listen in on their conversation.

  “...not gonna believe what I was just able to find, man,” the officer said, followed by the ruffle of papers. “Look at this. I was searching through his criminal records like you told me to.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Eric Beal did that?” Blaine asked. More files were being flipped through. “He was arrested for an attack against Devin Smith. Is this person related to the victim in some way?”

  “Oh, c’mon, are you serious? Look at their last names! They’ve gotta be related!”

  Thea felt a knot beginning to form at the back of her throat. What was Eric thinking? Attacking a member of the Smith family? She was somewhat glad that she wasn’t close to him, regardless if they were related. It was clear that Eric was nothing but trouble.

  Still, the discovery of his past criminal records startled her. A small part of her was disappointed that he was capable of doing such a thing. At the same time, she wasn’t too surprised. She had seen Eric’s aggressive behavior more than once in the short time she had gotten to know him more.

  As she exited the police station, she decided to put that information at the back of her mind. She found it necessary to do so. Otherwise, the thoughts that would have materialized as a result wouldn’t have let her have a peaceful day.

  Chapter 13

  She decided to listen to Blaine’s advice and distance herself from the developing murder case. It was bringing her unnecessary stress that she really didn’t need. From Ashley’s threat against her to Eric’s erratic behavior, she simply didn’t want to think about the investigation anymore. She trusted that Blaine would handle things, just like he promised.

  She had to divert her attention and put her energy towards things that truly mattered to her. One of those things was her shop, which needed a deep clean after the mess Eric created. A good scrub of A Stitch in Time was long overdue, anyways.

  Thea’s main focus was cleaning up all the glitter still left behind on her floor. She couldn’t believe that stray bits of it managed to stick on her clothes, which basically gave her presence away to Ashley. Why didn’t she notice it?

  “I guess what they say about glitter is right,” she mumbled to herself, as she scrubbed the floor where the spill occurred with a sponge. “It never goes away.”

  After spending a good half an hour on her hands and knees, wiping down the floor until she was certain it was spotless, Thea finally got up and began tending to the other matters in the shop. She was thankful that it was pretty empty. Slow days allowed her to get more stuff done.

  For one, there was new inventory that she had to account for. The new paints and easels she ordered had finally arrived and it took her some time to get everything set up in their appropriate places. Not to mention, she had to take note of all of the new shipments that came in. That alone kept her preoccupied for over an hour, keeping record of everything she had in the shop.

  The last thing she wanted to get done for the day was restock empty displays. As she carried boxes of materials around the store, she silently wished that Jesse would suddenly appear and s
tart helping her out. She didn’t like doing these things alone. Plus, A Stitch in Time was eerily quiet without him around. The only noises consisted of her footsteps against the ground and an occasional sound from Sybil, who was curled up in the corner of the shop, licking at her paws.

  “This is the last thing to do, Thea,” she whispered to herself. Since no one else was around, the least she could do was encourage herself to get things done. “Restocking. That’s all that’s left.”

  As she made her way across the clearing, she stopped and paused, glancing at the empty display of paintbrushes. Almost immediately, she was brought back to that day when Rebecca and Zach came into the shop looking for supplies. She then recalled how Eric stormed in, yelling at the two of them. For Thea, that was the first mention of a blood feud that existed between the Beals and Smiths. Eric’s words haven’t been able to escape her mind since.

  Was it possible that she was finally caving in? Her hand traced the spot where the paintbrushes usually were, thinking about how serious Eric got when discussing this topic.

  “Was he telling the truth?” Thea asked no one in particular. But if he was, why didn’t she know about it before?

  Why did it have to take Rebecca’s murder to unearth the truth about the Beals and Smiths? Thea didn’t know, but there was a small voice in her head beckoning her to learn more. One half of her was disturbed at the thought of learning about an ancient fight between her family and another. However, the other half of her was fascinated.

  Maybe Eric had a point. Maybe she did have to learn a bit more about her family history.

  When talking about this with Pippa, she suggested visiting the library and looking through the census records. With the history of the town and its former occupants recorded on those documents, Thea knew that she was bound to find something interesting. Pippa mentioned how the major families of Ardensville were on file. In addition to that, Thea would be able to find the members of both the Beals and the Smiths.

  She also wanted to find out how Devin Smith was related to Rebecca and Ashley. After hearing what the police officer mentioned to Blaine, she wanted to see if it was possible that Eric had a history of attacking immediate members of the Smith family. If he already did it once, it was more than likely that he was willing to do it again. Thea didn’t want to assume that to be true, but looking at how things were panning out, it was likely.

  Placing the final items along the shelves and displays, Thea decided to call off work for the day. Even though she wanted to take some time off the case, the desire to learn more about the connections between the Smiths and the Beals kept nagging at her brain. Those records at the library were her only hope at finding some answers.

  “Where are you going, Thea?” Sybil called out, arching her back as she stretched out her arms in front of her. “Leaving me again?”

  “I thought you liked being alone. It’s your chance to take as long a nap as you need,” Thea joked, throwing on her coat and making sure her keys were in her pocket. “I’m heading to the library. I want to go talk to Granny.”

  “If you leave your shop unattended for too long, you’ll start to lose business,” the kitten reminded her, readjusting her position on her cat bed.

  “Sybil, take a look around. I don’t think I’ll be having that many customers come in today, anyway,” Thea replied bluntly, motioning to the empty shop. “Besides, if push comes to shove, I’ll just post flyers of you around town and encourage people to come pet you. People love kittens, you know.”

  Sybil made a disgruntled noise, although it was mainly playful. “You’re cruel.”

  “Love you, too,” Thea said, waving goodbye as she exited the shop.

  Her mind was set on finding more about her family history and how it intertwined with Rebecca’s. For Eric’s sake, she hoped that she didn’t find Devin Smith in those records. However, she was bracing for anything at this point.

  Chapter 14

  There was always a warm comfort that came with entering the town library. She didn’t know whether it was the stillness of the air, the soft rustle of pages as someone flipped through their book, or the general serenity of the ambience. Whatever it was, she loved it. She would spend her whole days in the library if she could.

  What made her trip even better was the fact that Granny was also there, working part-time as a volunteer. Thea found her behind the counter with her nose in an old Jane Austen classic. She could recognize the hardcover paperback of Pride and Prejudice anywhere.

  “Hey, Granny,” Thea whispered, smiling wide once she promptly looked up from her book and shut it closed.

  “Thea! How are you? I didn’t expect you to come by and shoot me a visit,” Granny said. “Aren’t you usually working at this time?”

  “It’s a slow day at A Stitch in Time, so I decided to drop by,” she explained. Eventually, she let out a small laugh. “What? I can’t visit my own grandmother?”

  “If it was up to me, I’d have you here by my side every day of the week,” Granny replied, placing her hand over Thea’s. “An occasional visit here and there is good enough for me. Did you want to read anything?”

  “I wanted to find something in particular. I wanted to look through our family records.”

  Granny, who was organizing a few stray books left on the counter, suddenly stilled at her comment. “Now, why would you want to do that?”

  “Out of curiosity. I kept hearing about some blood feud between the Beals and the Smiths. Apparently, it’s existed for a while now. Do you know anything about that?” Thea asked.

  The older woman sent her an odd look.

  Thea offered a weak smile. “Please?”

  “I don’t know about all of that, Thea. A fight between the Beals and Smiths?” Granny asked, placing her hand on her hip and thinking for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that happening.”

  “Can you show me the census records at least? Maybe even some birth records and death records, too?”

  Granny narrowed her eyes at her before emerging from behind the counter and leading her off to a section of the library that was rarely visited. She threw a look over her shoulder towards her granddaughter.

  “I hope you’re not brewing up some trouble, Thea,” Granny warned as they stopped before a bookshelf that contained rows of manila folders. “You just wanted to find information about the Beals?”

  “And the Smiths. I need them for research.”

  The files were organized alphabetically, so it was relatively simple to find the records of the Smith family. Granny handed those off to Thea, giving her the chance to look through them as she tried to find the Beals.

  As she sifted through the various papers, Thea managed to find a genealogical tree that depicted most members of the Smith family. She was able to find Rebecca and Ashley, listed underneath their parents. There came a small pang to her heart to see Rebecca’s death date already included in the document. She was still very young. And just like that, she was gone.

  Her eyes continued to drift over the document until they landed on a particular name. She was expecting it to pop up sooner or later. Devin Smith was, in fact, a distant relative of Rebecca’s. They shared the same ancestor a couple generations back.

  Oh, Eric, Thea thought to herself, shaking her head as she skimmed through the rest of the papers. What kind of mess did you just fall into?

  Soon enough, Thea was able to find a file that recorded how various members of the Smith family ended up dying. Her heart leapt in her chest as she kept seeing the word Beal pop up on the page. The Beals were responsible for many Smith deaths, so it seemed. It looked like the rumors were right. Thea assumed that if she looked at the same file but on the Beal’s side, she would see the same pattern appear.

  The good news was that there was no instance of this feud within the last sixty years. It died down, fortunately. Why did Eric have to suddenly bring it up?

  “Here’s these,” Granny said, knocking her out of her daze.

&
nbsp; Thea set aside the Smith family records and began searching through her own. She had never taken the effort to learn more about her roots. After all, the only family she truly knew was Granny and her Aunt Tiegen and that was enough for her. Besides them, she had no one else to call her blood. To see a sprawling family tree under the surname Beal almost managed to bring her to tears. All of those people, all of that history, and Thea knew little to nothing about them.

  “Granny, I have a question,” Thea asked suddenly, looking up from the files with a confused expression. “How come there aren’t any death records for my parents here? That’s gotta be a mistake, right?”

  Thea’s parents died when she was young. She didn’t have many memories of them, considering they passed away when she was only five years old. Granny raised her with the frequent help of Aunt Tiegan and the two of them would keep their memories alive by telling Thea about them from time to time. To see no records of their deaths was odd, especially considering how Rebecca’s file was updated rather quickly.

  “Is that so?” Granny asked, leaning over to peek at the document.

  Thea nodded. “I think that should get fixed. We can’t have random gaps in our family history.”

  “You have a point, Thea,” she replied, taking the files from her and placing them back in their places on the shelf. “Leaving already?”

  “I found what I needed, Granny. Thank you for the help,” Thea said, embracing Freya tightly and rubbing a few circles into her back. “I’ll try to visit you again soon, alright?”

  “I’ll be waiting, then. Good luck, Thea, and make sure to stay safe,” Granny reminded her.

  Thea responded with a small grin. Granny’s affection always managed to warm her heart. With a newfound energy, she planted a quick peck on Granny’s cheek before heading towards the library’s exit. All of the information she read through was still swirling in her mind.