“For you.” When Mom nodded at me, I had to confirm what she meant. “Not me?”
“Well, that’s between you and her.”
I shook my head. She was unbelievable. “What did you have to give her?”
“You went into my workshop. You know.”
I thought back to when I’d been there two days previously.
“You gave her all of your implements? Your wands, even your crystal ball?”
Mom shook her head. “Oh no, some of that I took with me to the hotel. I just had to give her a few knickknacks.”
Mom was obviously understating what she’d paid Hazel. I knew there was no way that help from that dark witch would have come at a cut-rate price. She no doubt had several thousand dollars’ worth of new magical implements to play with thanks to Mom.
“And that’s all?”
“And I did a spell for her, which I’m sure you know about.”
“The scrapbooks!”
Mom nodded again.
“But why? Hazel doesn’t strike me as the hobbyist type. And taking other people’s scrapbooks defeats the whole point.”
“Don’t be stupid, Aria,” said Mom, shaking her head. “She only wanted one scrapbook. The problem was I didn’t have a good way to just draw one to me. So I had to summon them all. It was a very draining series of spells, let me tell you.”
BZZZZ.
I quickly canceled the call again when I saw it was, again, from an unknown number.
Ding!
Sarah came in toting a little cardboard carrier with three cups of coffee in it. But more interesting was the look on her face. It was a look that said…
“Aria! You’ll never guess what happened!”
I glanced at Mom and she nodded her head toward Sarah in a listen to her gesture.
“I don’t suppose I will. Go on, then.”
“Hazel Crane bought Sandra’s house! And it’s going to be rezoned and she’s going to open a—”
“Fudge shop?” I said, interrupting. That would explain Hazel’s desire to get her hands on the scrapbook—she needed Sandra’s recipes.
“Fudge!” screeched Kiwi.
Mom looked up at him with a sigh.
“Have you still got that thing? Goodness, Aria.”
BZZZ.
Exasperated, I pressed the answer call button.
“WHAT!?” I demanded.
“Is that Aria Whitmore?” said a voice with a foreign accent that I couldn’t immediately place.
“Yes?”
Mom looked at me with something akin to panic on her face. She started shaking her head at me.
“I think you were expecting to hear from me?”
Australian. That was the accent—Australian for sure.
“Who is this?”
Mom was shaking her head quite emphatically now.
“It’s your father, Aria.”
Oh, fudge.
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In Hot Fudge And Cold Blood Page 17