Sandra’s gaze had returned to the crowd, scanning, it seemed, for something or someone specific. She tightly clasped the large purse between her arm and her body, practically daring Blaine to ask about it.
“Sandra,” Blaine said, “do you mind if I take a look inside your bag? Just so we can get on with things?”
Sandra looked at Blaine and laughed. “Are you kidding me? You think you can just look at my personal belongings without any precedent? I’m not an idiot. I know my rights. If you want to look through my stuff, you’ll need a warrant. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Sheriff, I have work to do.” Sandra turned on her heel and quickly walked away.
Blaine sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Well, that could’ve gone better.”
Thea agreed. “So what now? Do we try to get a warrant to do a thorough search?”
“I wish it was that easy,” Blaine replied. “Warrants can be really difficult to get a hold of, and right now we just don’t have enough evidence for any judge to grant one. We’ll have to figure this out some other way.”
“Hmm,” Thea grumbled. She wasn’t necessarily convinced that Sandra had murdered Marcel, but her behavior just then was incredibly suspicious. Then again, Thea wasn’t so sure she would just hand over her purse for any old person to look through without a real reason.
“Look,” Blaine said, pausing Thea’s train of thought, “I’ve got to get back to work. Technically, I’m still on security duty for the festival.”
“All right, I guess I shouldn’t keep you from it.”
“And what about you? Think you’ll hang around awhile?”
Thea sighed this time. “No, it’s getting a little late and I’m pretty tired.” She yawned, perhaps a bit more than she had intended. “I think I’ll just head home for the night.”
Blaine nodded.
“That’s fair. I wish I could do the same.” He smiled boyishly at her.
She couldn’t help but smile back. “Hopefully you don’t have to be out here too much longer.”
The two hugged a shade longer than necessary before parting and heading their separate ways: Blaine to patrol the perimeter of the festival, and Thea to her car, the front of her body still pleasantly warm from Blaine’s bear hug.
Chapter 24
When Thea told Blaine that she wanted to head home, she meant it. At least, she thought she did.
As she maneuvered her way through the streets of Ardensville, she was suddenly struck with an interesting idea. All of this time, she had been focusing on the suspects and their whereabouts, even going as far as sneaking into the mayor’s office to try and find some dirt.
Thea decided that it was about time that she checked Marcel’s house for any clues or evidence. There must have been something interesting in his belongings. Perhaps a letter or a note from one of the people who wanted to see his downfall. She was desperate to find anything that would help lead them in the right direction.
She phoned Granny for the address.
“I’m not going to regret this, am I?” Granny asked as she dug out the yellow pages. “I don’t have infinite funds for bail, you know.”
“I’m pretty sure you do,” Thea pointed out. “But you won’t need it, no. I’ll keep a low profile. Besides, I’m trying to exonerate Eleanor here, remember?”
That got her the address easily enough, and the promise of Granny’s silence.
With most of the attention directed towards the Harvest Festival, Thea found no issue hurrying through the streets of the town. She blended in with the shadows, moving in silence as she neared Marcel’s home. When she arrived, she didn’t want to risk the possibility of someone catching her trying to head in through the front.
Instead, she opted to take a secondary route. Using her magic, she unlocked one of the back windows and creeped in, making as minimal noise possible. Unlike her stint at the mayor’s office, she wasn’t trying to get caught this time around.
“All right, Thea,” she whispered to herself, resting her hands on her hips as she observed the somewhat disheveled house around her. “Let’s find something worthwhile.”
Even though she didn’t have a clue of what she was looking for exactly, she figured that she would run into something. Opening drawers and digging through the belongings, Thea didn’t find much at first.
There were some pictures strewn here and there, mostly of himself but occasionally there was a woman present with him. In his closet, he kept a lot of hats. Not to mention, he owned an abnormal amount of shoes. They were all polished, shiny enough to glisten even with the limited amount of light.
As she continued searching through the closet, she gasped inwardly as she almost tripped on a solid, heavy object near her feet. Gazing down, she lightly kicked at it again and realized that it was a safe, obscured by the items and clothing that covered it.
It took a bit of effort on her part to clear the space so that the front side of the safe was visible. As she crouched low and observed what she was dealing with, she knew that she couldn’t do this alone. She needed some advice.
Within seconds, Thea summoned Sybil to her side. The kitten let out a small noise, taking a brief look at her unfamiliar surroundings. Eventually, she looked up at Thea.
“What the fuzz paw Thea? Whose house are we in?” Sybil asked.
“Marcel’s,” Thea said, motioning towards the safe. “I need some help trying to unlock this thing. I’m not really good with this sort of stuff. Do you know anything I can do?”
Sybil laughed. “Are you kidding? I’m the last familiar to go to when trying to pick locks. This was never my forte and I’m not interested in learning today.” With that Sybil hoisted her hind leg over her head and began the grooming ritual. Thea sighed.
Trailing her hand across the surface of the safe, the pads of her fingertips tingled as she felt the individual tumblers within the strongbox. However, she was unable to get them to come together correctly. Her timing was off.
“All right,” Thea whispered out, readjusting her position so that she was resting on her knees. She placed both of her hands on the safe, closing her eyes. “I’ll just have to do what Aunt Tiegen taught me.”
Entering a state of relaxation, Thea focused her energy on the meditation process. She knew that it was going to work. She believed in herself. Based on the intense pulsing inside of her chest, she was getting close. It was working.
That pride in her own abilities didn’t last long, however. Sybil’s sudden growling snapped her out of the meditative trance, much to her displeasure. The familiar’s back arched as her hairs stood up tall.
“We need to be careful, Thea” Sybil said slowly, unwilling to make her way towards the door of the room. “I don’t think we’re the only ones in this house.”
She frowned, stopping her movements and waiting to hear some sort of noise that would confirm Sybil’s suspicions. After a few seconds of nothing, she was just about to brush off the familiar as being overly paranoid. She had probably heard the wind rustling the trees outside.
Yet, they both froze up when they heard footsteps. Consistent ones. Ones that became muffled as their owner strayed into a separate room of the house, but they soon got closer and closer to their location.
“Quick!” Thea hissed out, scooping up Sybil and darting into the nearest bathroom. It was only a few feet away from Marcel’s bedroom.
She carefully ducked behind the shower curtains, which were perfect in obscuring her presence all while allowing her to take a brief peek of whatever was happening on the other side. The footsteps were soon right outside, strolling past the bathroom and into the bedroom where Thea and Sybil just came from.
Holding her breath, Thea hoped that they wouldn’t notice the mess and attribute it to some intruder. She moved around a lot of stuff in Marcel’s bedroom. If anything was going to blow her cover, the misplaced items would be at the top of that list.
“Thea,” Sybil mumbled, peeking her small head outside of the shower curtains.
From where they sat, they could hear the person moving some things around in Marcel’s room. Thea’s hands were clamming up, and even though Sybil tried to act as a soothing presence, it wasn’t working well considering the situation they found themselves in.
“What are we gonna do, Sybil?” Thea asked in a whisper, looking towards the kitten for guidance.
She sat down near her feet, shaking her head. “We can’t run. We’re trapped in here, Thea,” Sybil explained, gazing towards the direction the person was in. “There’s no way out of here without being seen.”
As the realization soon hit her, Thea’s eyes widened. She and Sybil were stuck in Marcel’s house with an unknown visitor.
Chapter 25
With a hand over her mouth to stifle any potential noises she could make, Thea was on high alert. Sybil was, too. The familiar was pacing around the bathroom carefully, sheathing and unsheathing her claws.
Since they were keeping quiet, they were able to hear how the person in Marcel’s bedroom was moving things around haphazardly. They even began to mumble. Thea sucked in a quiet breath, heart pounding loudly in her chest as she recognized the owner of that voice. She didn’t want to believe it.
As she maneuvered herself out of the bathtub and peeked her head outside of the bathroom door, she hoped that she was wrong. She was desperately wishing that she had guessed wrong.
“Thea!” Sybil hissed out quietly, watching as she snuck out of the bathroom.
She pressed a finger on her lips, instructing Sybil to keep quiet. The kitten didn’t like what she was doing, but she didn’t say a word. After all, she didn’t want to blow Thea’s cover as she creeped her way into Marcel’s bedroom to confront the intruder directly.
Without a word, she flicked on the light of the room. In return, she heard a yelp as the person crouched in front of the safe tumbled over in shock.
“Eleanor?” Thea breathed out, watching as the woman scrambled to get back up on her two feet. “What’s going on here? What are you doing here?”
The woman placed a hand over her chest, taking a few deep breaths to calm down her heart rate. A pang of guilt coursed through Thea, realizing that she startled the woman so badly. That feeling soon subsided once it was replaced by confusion as she glanced between Eleanor and the safe.
“I should ask you the same thing,” she huffed out, swallowing thickly. “Goodness, you almost took me out with that scare.”
“I’m sorry,” Thea responded, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. “But you still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?”
Gazing at the dark safe in Marcel’s closet, she scowled. “I’m trying to find…” she paused, reluctantly running her hand across her face. “Marcel has some blackmail on Fred and me. I’m trying to find it before anyone else does.”
“Blackmail?” Thea asked, balking at the revelation. “Why was he blackmailing you two? What does he even have on you guys?”
Eleanor rolled her eyes as she thought about the situation. She couldn’t believe that their past was being used against them. Wasn’t the past supposed to stay in the past?
“Years ago, Fred and I were involved in an embezzlement scheme,” she said, looking to Thea. “Now, I’m not going to explain why we did what we did. I’m not in the mood to get into the details because what’s done is done. When we were released, that’s when we started to turn things around. My diner was starting to gain traction and Fred was one of my close confidantes.”
Her tone soured immediately as she thought about Marcel and his involvement in the entire thing.
“Somehow, Marcel managed to find out about what happened to us in the past. I don’t know how or who told him, but he found this out recently. He began using it against me. He wanted to tell the entire town about how I was a felon and how I couldn’t be trusted.”
Thea shook her head. “That’s horrible. Why would he do that?”
“To ruin my business, of course,” Eleanor responded brusquely. “Why else? He wanted the best restaurant in town. He wanted all of the customers and all of the money. Since I was his competition, he wanted to take me out of the picture. But I didn’t let him.”
“So what did you do?”
Eleanor rested her hands on her hips. “Since he was playing dirty, I decided to do the same. I snapped a photo of him without his hat on. Those little horns on his head were clearly visible. I had threatened to expose him as a demon to the mundanes of this town. That was enough to scare him into backing down.”
“Is that why you two were fighting?” Thea reasoned, recalling how Sandra mentioned that to her. “It wasn’t about the award?”
“Of course it wasn’t about that! How shallow do I look?” Eleanor asked, though her offense wasn’t directed towards Thea. As she uttered those words, her mind immediately drifted back to Marcel and his behavior. “I didn’t care too much about that title, anyway. It was nice to have, but it wasn’t a necessity. He thought it was. He was always doing things to get his way.”
“I never expected him to have blackmail on you and Fred,” Thea said.
Eleanor scoffed, letting out a dry laugh. “Marcel must have had blackmail on half the town. It was a game to him. He used everyone around him like pawns in order to achieve his goals. He didn’t mind stepping on everyone in his path to do so.”
“Do you think the blackmail is in that safe?” Thea questioned, motioning towards the strongbox with a finger.
“I mean, where else could it be?” Eleanor said, looking around at the rest of the room.
Thanks to both Thea and Eleanor’s efforts, the bedroom was trashed. Marcel’s belongings were strewn all over the bed and on the floor. While Thea was searching for nothing in particular, Eleanor was searching for the documents that exposed her and Fred’s past.
“I know that he had copies of the court files,” Eleanor mumbled, lightly kicking the safe with her foot. “It was proof that we spent time in jail. I know that those papers are in this safe, there’s no doubt about it.”
“We’ll open it,” Thea reassured her. “I promise that I’ll–”
Suddenly, a booming knock on the front door sounded throughout the house. The both of them gasped and exchanged wide-eyed looks of fear. Acting quickly, Thea dashed towards the light switch and turned it off.
She did so in an effort to conceal their presence, as a way to fool the person outside and convince them that the house was empty. However, the knocking only persisted. Whoever it was knew that they were inside.
Gulping, Thea realized that there was no way to escape out of this situation cleanly.
Chapter 26
After hearing the knocks, Sybil bolted into the bedroom with the two of them. The familiar stared warily at Eleanor. At that expression, Thea waved her hand in the air and reassured the kitten.
“Granny says that she’s a fairy,” Thea whispered to Sybil. “She’s not mundane, there’s nothing to worry about.”
With a relieved sigh, Sybil loosened up. “Good. Do you want me to check on who the person is outside? If they’re someone dangerous, then we need to get out of here as soon as possible. I don’t want us getting into more trouble.”
“Of course, Sybil,” Thea said with a quick nod towards the door. “Go on. If it’s a stranger, then we’ll sit tight and wait until they leave.”
“I hope it’ll give me enough time to crack into this safe,” Eleanor mumbled, eyeing the box. “I’m not stopping until I get those documents.”
Sybil dashed out of the bedroom and headed towards the front door, where there was a small window to its side that revealed the porch. Peeking through, the familiar was able to recognize the person standing outside. Immediately, she relayed the information back to Thea.
“You’re not going to believe this!” Sybil exclaimed, hurrying back to the two women waiting in the bedroom. “It’s Blaine! He’s the one outside!”
“Blaine?” Thea repeated, furrowing her eyebrows. “What’s he doing here? Di
d someone tip him off?”
“Oh great, it’s that detective?” Eleanor asked in exasperation. “I’m really stuck between a rock and a hard place, aren’t I?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle things,” Thea promised her as she made her way to the front door, ready to let him in.
She straightened out her clothing and shook off her nerves before opening the door. Unsurprisingly, Blaine stood there with a blank expression. As if he wasn’t too shocked that Thea was the one causing trouble.
“What are you doing here, Thea?” he deadpanned. “I just got a call that someone broke into Marcel’s house. Was it you?”
“It was me,” Eleanor called out from behind her, raising a hand. “I was the one who entered through the front. I picked the lock. If you want, I can explain everything to you.”
Raising a brow, Blaine eventually accepted her offer. He followed Eleanor into the bedroom, ready to hear what she had to say. Meanwhile, Thea and Sybil waited in the living room until they finished. The familiar hopped on top of the coffee table, careful in stepping around the junk that was littered across it.
“Sheesh, this guy was grimy,” Sybil said, not wanting to soil her paws on anything dirty. “I’m not surprised, if what that lady said is true.”
“About all the blackmail? Yeah. It’s a messed up thing to do to people. And he managed to do it to half of Ardensville.”
Before she and Sybil were able to discuss the situation further, Blaine and Eleanor emerged from the bedroom. He was motioning towards the front door.
“We’re going to talk to Fred. I want to confirm everything with her, and it’s about time I check out the gun she owns. I need to see if it matches the bullet we found at the scene.”
Nodding, Thea instructed Sybil to get back home as she followed Blaine and Eleanor out the door. The familiar complied easily, scurrying off into the darkness. Meanwhile, the three of them entered their respective vehicles and followed Eleanor as she led them towards Fred’s house.
Creature Magic (Tabby Kitten Mystery Series Book 2) Page 9