Without looking up from her work, Pippa responded. “Unfortunately not. Everyone I talked to had nothing negative to say about him.”
“Nothing? Really?” Thea felt deflated. She meandered over to the window, where the fat cat Captain was snoozing, and she pet him gently, feeling the rumble of his purring under her hand.
“Nothing. He’s just a nice, normal, boring guy.” Pippa finished with the first stack she had grabbed and replaced it with a new one to work on. “I suppose he might change somewhat now that he’s the head chef of the ‘Best Restaurant’ in town.”
“How so?” Thea asked.
“The praise might go to his head. I kind of doubt it, though. He doesn’t even seem interesting enough for that to happen to him.”
“Hmm,” Thea groaned and cupped her hands over her face. She’d hoped Francis would be a more promising lead, but that seemed unlikely given what Pippa had found out.
Noticing Thea’s disappointment, Pippa decided to change the subject. “What did you think of Sandra?”
Thea moved her hands back down to her sides and turned toward Pippa. “She was… interesting?”
“Are you asking me?” Pippa asked jokingly.
“No, sorry. I just had a hard time getting a good read on Sandra. She was a little spooky, definitely worth checking into a little bit more.”
Pippa’s eyebrows nearly shot off her head. This was what she’d been waiting to hear. “So?”
“So what?”
“So does this mean we’re breaking in somewhere?” Pippa asked excitedly, practically throwing the price gun down on the counter. Thea was both concerned and amused at Pippa’s enthusiasm for breaking and entering. Knowing her friend well, though, made Thea lean more on the side of amusement.
The truth was Thea hadn’t yet decided what the best course of action would be with Sandra. Because of this, she just smiled coyly at Pippa and shrugged her shoulders.
Pippa twisted her face into playful disappointment, but she knew not to take the conversation further. Instead, she resumed her work and asked a new question.
“What about Eleanor? Could she be responsible?”
“I’ve definitely thought about it,” Thea responded. “But, to be honest, I’m not too sure. Granny is certain Eleanor is innocent, but Sandra said Marcel and Eleanor had an argument before he was killed.”
“An argument about the restaurants?”
“I would assume so. It’s something I need to look into further before passing any sort of judgment.” Just as soon as Thea finished speaking, she felt the buzz of her phone in her pocket. Thea pulled it out and read the caller ID: Blaine.
“Hey, what’s up?” Thea asked Blaine when she answered the call.
“Hey,” Blaine responded. “So we just got confirmation on the bullet we found. It came from a 9-millimeter handgun.”
Having never had any interest in guns, Thea didn’t know what to do with the information.
“So… what does that mean?” she asked Blaine abashedly. Thea wasn’t used to being uninformed on a subject.
Blaine chuckled and said, “It means it came from a pretty common gun. Something a lot of people could have.”
“Oh,” Thea said.
Blaine sensed the discouraged tone of Thea’s voice and quickly said, “But that doesn’t mean this is a dead end. In fact, if we can find who the gun belongs to, we should have our killer. Do you think Sybil could help us out with that?”
“She might be able to, but it’s a bit of a stretch. Sybil’s magic focuses on the emotion and history behind an object. Guns are usually unemotional and distant, so she might not be able to find anything.”
This time, it was Blaine’s turn to sound discouraged. “Oh, I guess that makes sense. Well, I’ve got to get back to work. Let me know if you find out anything interesting, okay?”
“Only if you promise to do the same,” said Thea.
“Will do,” said Blaine before hanging up the phone.
Pippa, who’d been listening intently to Thea’s half of the conversation, asked, “So an unemotional, distant gun?”
Thea turned to her friend and explained the full situation.
“So what are you going to do now?” asked Pippa.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like we’re getting anywhere this way, and I want to find the culprit.”
Pippa set down the books she’d been pricing and preemptively clapped her hands.
“Does this mean what I think it means?” Pippa asked eagerly.
“It might. At this point, I think I’ll do anything. Even if it means breaking into the mayor’s office.”
Chapter 16
“So you’re absolutely sure Teigen and Sandra are at the Harvest Festival tonight, right?” Thea asked Pippa over the phone as she walked toward the town hall. She’d purposefully parked blocks away to avoid any suspicion.
“Yup, for the pumpkin carving contest,” responded Pippa. “I still can’t believe you told me I couldn’t go with you tonight, by the way,” she added. “This whole thing was basically my idea.”
“Even if it was your idea, which it wasn’t,” said Thea, “it’s enough of a risk for Sybil and me to go. An extra person would just mean more chances at getting caught.”
“Oh come on, I’m small,” Pippa whined.
“Yeah, yeah,” Thea chuckled. “Well, you can keep whining about being left out away from the mayor’s office. I’m almost there. Talk to you later.”
With that, Thea hung up her phone and switched it to silent mode. She stuffed the phone in her front pocket and approached town hall on foot, Sybil quietly pitter-pattering beside her.
The lock on the front door was easy enough for Thea to manage with her magic, and a town as small as Ardensville didn’t feel the need to employ security measures like cameras or a complex alarm system.
Thea and Sybil were in.
Thea created a small aura of light, just enough for her to see where she was going. The low light around her was more than enough for Sybil to see clearly as she walked ahead, scouting for anything that could get them caught.
Many of the interior doors in town hall were locked, but manipulating them open was child’s play compared to some of the other locks Thea had dealt with in the past. Eventually, the two arrived at Sandra’s desk outside the mayor’s office.
“I’ll look through Sandra’s desk,” Thea said to Sybil. “How about you look around for other clues?”
“Got it,” said Sybil. The cat slunk around the office, using her magical senses to search for anything of interest.
Thea advanced toward the desk and began carefully rifling through the papers sitting on top. None of it looked particularly interesting, let alone like it had anything to do with Marcel’s murder or Sandra’s life outside work.
Sybil, though, had better luck. She had been closely inspecting the desk’s underside. “Hey, Thea, it looks like there’s a hole down here. By the drawers.”
Thea rearranged the papers so they were back in their places before kneeling down to get a look at whatever Sybil had found. There was a hole that looked just large enough to hold a small key, which Thea easily plucked from its home.
“What do you think it goes to?” Sybil asked.
“Maybe one of these drawers?” Thea guessed. She started at the top drawer, but the key stopped about halfway in the lock. Thea moved down to the middle drawer and had similar luck.
“Third time’s the charm,” Thea joked as she attempted to use the key. It slid in the lock like butter and turned with a satisfying click.
“It’s weird that there’s different keys for these drawers, right?” Sybil questioned.
“I’m guessing it means whatever Sandra’s got in this drawer is pretty important. Why else would she hide the key?”
Thea slid the drawer out and found a book with the year emblazoned on the cover.
“This must be Sandra’s planner,” she said before taking it out to get a better look. When Thea opened the
planner, an aged piece of paper fluttered to the floor. She picked it up and saw that it was an old court summons.
“What is it?” Sybil asked.
“A court summons for a B&E. It looks pretty old.”
“Hmm, I wouldn’t have pegged Sandra as the type,” said Sybil.
“I dunno, people have their reasons. And I’m not exactly in a position to judge her for it,” Thea replied and gestured to the room around them.
She flipped through the planner some more and found a strip of pictures from a photobooth. In the pictures were Sandra and Marcel, smiling, laughing, and making absurdly goofy faces.
Thea held down the strip for Sybil to get a look.
“Aww,” said Sybil. “It looks like they were close.”
“Yeah,” said Thea. If Sandra had killed Marcel, something big must have changed between them.
Thea returned the photos and summons to their proper places in the planner and began searching through the drawer again. Nothing else stood out. She neatly replaced the planner in the drawer and slowly closed it, ensuring she heard the “click” of the lock.
“I guess I was kidding myself by thinking there’d be a gun here, huh Sybil?” Thea asked dejectedly.
“Probably a little. I would assume Sandra would either carry that with her or leave it at home.”
“True,” Thea sighed. She stuffed the key back in its hole beneath the desk and stood up. “I think that’s about all we can expect to find here. Let’s take a quick look through Teigen’s office before we go.”
Thea and Sybil walked the few steps toward the mayor’s office, and Thea began working on the lock. Before she’d so much as moved the first pin, though, Thea’s body froze in place. Try as she might, her muscles refused to move.
“Sybil, I think—” Thea started to say before Sybil let out a loud, squeaky mew. Thea moved her eyes as best she could to the spot where Sybil had been, but the cat had vanished.
Behind her, Thea could hear the “click” of heels approaching down the hall.
Chapter 17
With a stunned breath, Thea tried to move her limbs but to no avail. A cold chill passed through her body as the clicking of heels on the floor got closer. Squeezing her eyes shut, she somewhat hoped that maybe if she ignored her problem, it would suddenly disappear.
Of course, things never ended up like that. She popped open one of her eyes and peeked over to the person staring her down with an unamused expression.
Aunt Tiegen. Not again. How could she forget Aunt T’s protection spells. With an icy look she arms crossed over her chest. Thea felt her throat go dry with her sudden appearance.
“Thea, what are you doing here?” Tiegen asked, accompanied by a small tilt of the head. “Out of all the things you could be doing right now… you choose this?”
Her aunt let out a sigh before waving her hand once in the air. Just like that, Thea felt as if she could breathe freely again as the invisible restraints enclosing her body vanished. She panted out, feeling her heart and her head thumping hard as a result of that ordeal.
Eventually, Thea gathered enough courage to look her aunt in the eyes.
“I…” Thea said, gnawing at her bottom lip. “I was searching for some evidence against Sandra. It was for Marcel’s murder case.”
As she watched her aunt open her mouth to respond, Thea sensed that she was in for a scolding. For that reason, she quickly interjected her.
“W-wait, I can explain! A lot of different people were talking about how explosive she was when Marcel broke up with her, so I figured that I would check through her stuff to see if she had a gun or something,” Thea explained without a pause. “I was just trying to help out in the investigation, that’s all!”
Tiegen blinked. “I don’t care about this murder case, Thea.”
“Wait, what?”
Her aunt pointed out the spot Thea was standing in. “Look at what you were doing. You just walked into an oblivious ward and didn’t even try to dismantle it.”
“I-I didn’t–”
“And don’t even get me started with the restraints, Thea. Really?” Tiegen shook her head. “You weren’t even able to defend yourself against that? After all this practice I helped you with today, I’m not impressed by this showing.”
Embarrassed by how her aunt put her on the spot like that, Thea averted her gaze and stared down at the floor. Her fists clenched and unclenched as she tried her best to keep calm, even though the situation was irritating the life out of her. Inhaling deeply, she glanced up at Tiegen again.
“How did you get here so fast, anyway?” Thea asked in a small voice. She felt like a child who had just gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar. “I thought you were going to be at the Harvest Festival all night.”
“I have my ways,” Tiegen replied with a small smile. “I would love to teach you all of my tricks, you know. But you’ll have to earn that.”
“How?”
“By brushing up on your basics, of course!” Tiegen laughed, shaking her head as she passed by Thea to make her way towards her office. “How do you expect to do the complicated spells if you can’t even nail the simple things first?”
Frustrated, Thea felt her cheeks heat up. It was a good thing that the mayor’s office was so dark. Her aunt wasn’t able to see the obvious shame plastered on her face. Before she let her eyes water with an influx of angry tears, Thea made her way towards the exit.
With her hand on the knob, she turned back towards her aunt. Tiegen was leaning on the doorway of her office, gazing at her curiously. It seemed as if she knew that Thea had some words still resting on the tip of her tongue.
“Do you know if Sandra owns a gun?” Thea asked. “I checked her desk, but it wouldn’t have made too much sense to bring a weapon to her workplace.”
“I don’t think so,” Tiegen replied. “And you’re right. It would have been against the rules to bring an unauthorized weapon through those doors.”
As she motioned towards Thea’s direction, a playful grin appeared on her face.
“You’re returning to the Harvest Festival now, aren’t you? If so, I hope you have a lot of fun, Thea,” she called out. “That little Dennis guy is waiting for you back at the pumpkin carving contest. I’m sure you’ll have a blast checking that out.”
“Unlikely,” Thea mumbled, sending her a halfhearted wave before finally exiting the building. The rush of cold air that hit her once she made it outside felt rejuvenating.
Her aunt guessed wrong. She had no plans to return to the Harvest Festival. In fact, she didn’t want to see or talk to anyone else for the rest of the night. Thea felt humiliated by what happened. By no means did she want to face anybody after going through that, she didn’t have the heart for it.
Instead, she headed straight home where Granny and Sybil were waiting for her. When she made it through the threshold of the house, the deadpanned expression on her face was enough to make her familiar hesitate to speak up.
“Thea!” Sybil exclaimed, sitting nearby the staircase. “I’m sorry about what happened! The ward… it knocked me out of there and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
“It’s okay,” Thea whispered, shaking off her shoes and setting her keys in their designated bowl. “Don’t worry about it, Sybil.”
Although the look on Granny’s face conveyed her worry for her, she didn’t say a word. She kept to herself, watching as Thea trudged up each stair until she made it to the second floor. From there, she eventually made it to her bedroom and flopped herself onto her mattress.
Her feet felt heavy and she was exhausted. Worst of all, she was ashamed by how the night played out.
Not only was she unable to find anything against Sandra, but she was caught in the act by her aunt. She shouldn’t have let that happen. Thea should have done better, she acknowledged that. As she drifted off to sleep, she couldn’t help but fixate on the fact that her magic needed some work. A lot of it.
Chapter 18
&nbs
p; When Thea woke up the next morning, she tried to convince herself that the embarrassment last night had been nothing more than a bad dream. Missing the obvious ward on Tiegen’s office was a blow to Thea’s pride.
She slowly swung her legs off the bed and grabbed her phone. Thea scrolled through the contacts until she reached Jesse. The phone rang a couple times before he sleepily answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Jesse, it’s Thea. Sorry to wake you.”
“Oh, no, I was about to get up anyway. What’s up?”
“I’ll need you to open the store by yourself today,” Thea answered. “I’ve got tons of research to do and not much time to do it. Think you’ll be okay?”
“Yeah, of course I’ll be alright. You do whatever you need to do.”
“Thanks, Jesse. I owe you one.”
Creature Magic (Tabby Kitten Mystery Series Book 2) Page 6