I was feeling in over my head. The world of spies and international espionage was completely foreign to me.
Although detectives did use spy equipment sometimes. And we did use some of their tactics.
It gave me an idea. I had a brand-new pair of high-tech binoculars that I had been hiding in my desk like a bottle of prized scotch. I opened the drawer and pulled out the box, admiring the sleek black packaging. I had never cracked these open before, but this seemed like the perfect time for the plan that I had in mind to catch the stalker in his tracks. I certainly didn’t need The Agency. I had some tricks of my own.
But I was going to need magic to make this plan work.
5
Vicky grimaced when I told her the plan. She was sitting on her bed, and she looked unsure about my request. “This is a bit above my skill level,” she said, Warren perched on her lap. He stuck his head out and didn’t immediately pull it back again. Maybe he was starting to get used to me.
He seemed to be listening intently to our conversation. That was a good thing. If anything went wrong, we were going to need a familiar on our side.
“Vicky, I wouldn’t ask if there was any other option.”
I’d actually thought she was going to be thrilled when I asked her to use magic on a case, but that was not the reception my request had received at all. Maybe I had misjudged what a good plan this actually was.
No, I told myself. This was perfect.
In order to draw Mikhalia’s stalker out into the light, I needed something to entice him. And what would be more enticing that Mikhalia herself?
Or at least someone who looked very much like her.
I knew about glamour spells. But I was going to need help.
Vicky looked very unsure. “What happened to solving cases the pure old-fashioned way?” she asked, cringing. “We’ve been using a lot of magic on this one. Didn’t you say it was dangerous to the coven?”
“This case is different, all right? As long as we are careful, no one will be in danger.”
“Why is this case different?” she asked me. “Because you want to impress Damon?” Vicky raised an eyebrow. Maybe I was just imaging it, but it looked like Warren did as well. Great. I was being judged by a turtle.
“No, it’s not that,” I replied quickly. “I just want to get this case solved so that we can get some money. Cases have been pretty thin on the ground lately.”
Vicky nodded and sighed. I noticed that she still hadn’t said yes. I paced back and forth in her bedroom while I waited for her answer.
“What can go wrong?” I asked her.
Vicky had a haunted look in her eyes as she stared up at me. “Glamour spells are real old-school witchcraft. It’s the kind of thing only the elders perform.”
I stopped pacing. “Maybe Geri would help us.” Crazier things had happened.
Part of me thought that Geri just wanted to impress the young witches with her vast knowledge and skills—that was the only reason I could think of to explain why she gleefully helped us perform a hazardous magic spell. Especially seeing as I had been honest with her and told her that this was about solving a case. Just a month earlier, she had told me that soon I would have to make a choice between being a witch and being a detective. She’d told me that the two worlds didn’t mix and would eventually put me in danger.
And yet here she was, helping me to mix the two of them.
We were at Geri’s house, which was tucked inside a little dip in the valley with mountains lining each side. It made it the safest place to perform magic without any humans seeing. I had the car parked right out the front for a quick getaway, though, as soon as the spell had been cast.
Vicky took a deep breath and got herself in position. She handed me Warren and told me to take good care of him while she was in her Mikhalia form. Mikhalia had been five foot, three inches tall and had long, dark curly hair, whereas Vicky was five-six and had straight, dirty blonde hair with a touch of red to it. She thought that Warren might be scared or confused when she changed shape. Although I had to wonder why she couldn’t just explain it to him, if he actually was a familiar.
I looked down at Warren while Geri cast the spell. He really did just look like a plain old turtle, if I was being honest. But I felt like I couldn’t tell that to Vicky. It was like the elephant in the room.
I glanced up and jumped when I saw the woman standing in front of me. Warren hurried his head back inside his shell when he saw the stranger there.
It was uncanny. It was also really, really weird. Warren’s legs went inside his shell as well, and there was no chance that he was coming out again until she changed back.
Even I took a step backwards. I mean, I knew it was my best friend in there, but she looked like someone I didn’t recognize.
“So, where do we go now?” She still sounded exactly like her old self, and I sighed with relief. Geri had assured me that glamour spells changed only the physical form, and everything else about Vicky remained intact. When Vicky opened her mouth and sang a few bars to try and coax Warren out, it was still her voice that we heard.
But no Warren.
Geri hurried us along out the door. She was going to come with us to supervise the second part of our plan.
“Come on, girls, we have to work quickly. The glamour only holds for an hour or so.”
Warren and I stayed inside my car, keeping watch while Vicky and Geri performed the transportation spell. Poor Vicky. She was having a rough night’s work. Not only did she have to keep the glamour spell in place, she had to transport herself inside Mikhalia’s apartment. No easy task for anyone. She was working double duty.
Lucky I could still afford to pay her.
I glanced around, keeping my binoculars trained on what was happening outside the apartment, up and down the street on either side. I was working off a hunch, but I was sure that whoever had been stalking Mikhalia would still be keeping close tabs on her apartment. Maybe even returning to the scene of the crime. We had debated whether we should put on our show here or at the lake, but I had decided the apartment was going to be the better bet.
It was as though I could feel a presence, somewhere nearby. I hoped that I wasn’t imagining it.
Whoever was watching—they were going to be shocked when they saw someone who looked exactly like the dead woman inside her apartment, cooking pasta. We had decided that Vicky would just pretend to be Mikhalia, doing the normal things that Mikhalia would do. Damon had told me that she was big fan of cooking her own pasta, and that she would make a pot that would last all week and bring it in GladWare containers for lunch every day.
There was movement in the bush to the left-hand side of the apartment block. Warren was actually the first to notice it, though that may have been a coincidence. He popped his head out of his shell and up, so that he was looking out the window, almost like he was pointing to something. He tapped his head against the glass like he was trying to get my attention to look over that way.
He may have been a rubbish familiar, but he was a pretty good detective.
“Good boy, Warren,” I said as I brought my binoculars back up to see who it was there, crouched in the bushes.
Blonde curls were poking out of the top, and a man stood up.
It was the next-door neighbor.
“Come on, Warren,” I said, grabbing him. “Now is your time to shine.”
I sighed and stared down at the man who kept calling me names, but who, at the same time, looking relieved that he had someone to talk to about the crazy thing that he had just seen. I’d managed to push him to the ground before he got a chance to run far.
“You are a cop, right?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “Sort of.” I could hear that my voice was flat.
Maybe I was disappointed that the stalker hadn’t been someone from her spy days, some international undercover agent. Instead, his name was Tom, and he was just a regular creepy guy with a slight Irish accent.
Tom was staring
up at me, looking for an explanation for the crazy thing he had just seen.
“What is that?” he asked, pointing at the rock I was holding that was actually a turtle. From the look on Tom’s face, he clearly thought I was about to clobber him over the head with it.
Huh. I’d never thought of using Warren as a weapon before. I wondered if that thought had ever occurred to Vicky.
I placed Warren down on the ground so that he could go to the bathroom if he needed to. Vicky had mentioned that sometimes, that had been an issue.
“What were you doing, Tom?” I asked him, helping him to his feet. “In the bushes, I mean. Staring into that apartment.”
“I saw her . . .” He was shaking as he pointed back toward the building. Vicky had turned back into Vicky and had been whisked away by Geri to recover. The glamour spell could be draining on a witch that hadn’t performed it before. “I saw Mikhalia in her apartment.”
“Tom,” I said, not wanting him to think he was completely crazy but also not wanting to give away the fact that we were witches, “We all know that Mikhalia is dead. It must have been someone who looked like her. If there was anyone there at all.”
He was still staring through the window into the now-empty kitchen.
I gave him a long look. “After all, you know better than any of us that Mikhalia is dead, right?”
He stared down at his hands. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t hurt her.”
But it wasn’t looking good for old Tom.
“Then why were you stalking her?” I asked.
“I wanted to be friends with her, all right?” he said, his voice shaking. “She’d just moved to town, and she’d moved in next door. You would think she’d be grateful for a friendly neighbor coming over and offering to show her around, but no. She was stuck up and didn’t even want to talk to me.”
Yeah. Sounded real friendly, all right.
“Then you should have given her some space.”
“She was such an ungrateful snob,” Tom said, his face turning a little red. “I am a nice guy. I would have been so sweet to her. I would have behaved like a real gentleman.”
I wondered if the look of disgust on my face was showing too obviously.
“She didn’t want to see you, Tom. Or date you. She had every right to ask you to leave her alone.”
He pointed up to the window again. His whole body was shaking. Well, I mean, he had just seen a ghost, I supposed. I couldn’t blame him for being freaked out. “What was that in there tonight?” he asked accusingly, like I had something do to with it, or at least held the answers. I mean, I did, but he had no way of knowing that. And I certainly wasn’t about to tell him the truth.
“Tom, were you the one that Mikhalia complained to the police about?”
He backed away from me and looked frightened. “If you’re not with the police . . . then who are you?”
He started to run again, and I chased after him. This time he was quick, and I wasn’t familiar with the territory. I lost my footing as Tom escaped. I tripped, and my binoculars fell the ground
And shattered. Just wonderful. I was going to have to go back to The Agency.
“Nice to see you back here,” Damon commented. “Can we expect this to be a full-time arrangement?” He crossed his arms and leaned back against his desk, his smile smug.
“Hardly.” I just needed to use their equipment. It was going to take me weeks to save up for a new pair of high-tech binoculars. This place had them just lying around for anyone to grab. But I still hadn’t seen anything like that device I’d found in Mikhalia’s apartment.
Damon asked me how the case was coming along, but all I said was that I had a few leads as I pushed past him to get to my desk. Well, I mean, not my desk. Mikhalia’s desk. The one that I was stuck with for the time being.
“Fine. I’ll leave you alone to work. Seeing as you think you can do it all on your own.”
I kept to myself for a while. I compiled my notes and tried to figure out the best course of action. Even though Tom was a creep, I wasn’t convinced that he was the killer. He had been shocked to see Mikhalia, yes, but he’d also kinda believed that it was actually her standing in that kitchen, or at least that it was a possibility. That made me think it had not been him that ended her life.
In fact, I wasn’t even sure he was the stalker.
There was something that Blue had told me. He’d said, “There was a guy out there who said that he would end her life if she didn’t back off and leave our town for good.”
That made it sound like Mikhalia was working on a case, and that whoever was following her didn’t want her pursuing it. And Tom had not wanted Mikhalia to leave town. He’d wanted to get closer to her.
I was lost in my thoughts as I switched on Mikhalia’s computer. Password locked. I considered asking Damon if he knew what the password was, but I didn’t want to ask for any help.
Spiky-haired Justine told me that she was going to the kitchen to grab a coffee and asked if I wanted one.
“Sure,” I said and threw her a smile. “I’ve had enough of tea for one week.”
“You know, that hair color really suits you,” Justine commented once she had returned to my desk with the coffee and perched herself on the edge. “How do you keep the color so fresh? I noticed that it hasn’t faded at all since the last time I saw you.” She shrugged. “Sorry. I’m trained to notice the smallest details.”
She was good. No one else had ever noticed that my hair, in spite of looking like it had been dyed bright red, never faded and never grew out at all. I picked up my coffee cup and took a quick sip.
Because it’s a hex that I can’t remove, and I have no idea who placed it on me.
I smiled up at her. “I top it up at home every couple of days to keep it fresh. I use a special shampoo.”
Justine nodded.
“Did you know Mikhalia very well?” I asked her, trying to get off the subject of my cursed hair.
She sighed and looked sadly down at the desk. “We were the only two women detectives here in The Agency. We’d made a pact to stick together, to have each other’s backs. Didn’t last long, though, did it?”
I shook my head. “No.” I took another sip of coffee. Nothing seemed to have lasted long with Mikhalia. She had left town almost as soon as she had arrived. I looked around at the other detectives. Yep, Justine was the only woman in a sea of dark suits now.
Justine glanced around. “I think I was the only one who Mikhalia trusted enough to tell the truth to.” Her voice got very low and grave as she turned back toward me. “Mikhalia had a past. A different past to the rest of us here. Well, to anyone, really. She didn’t tell anyone. But she told me.”
I stopped drinking my coffee and spun my chair around to face her. She had my full attention now.
“Told you what?”
She paused for a second, and then shot me a wink. “That she was from Tasmania.” Justine laughed and quickly gulped down her coffee. Ha-ha. I got the joke. People from Tasmania didn’t want anyone to know. But I got the feeling that she had intended to tell me far more than that and had changed her mind at the last moment.
Which meant that she wanted to keep that information from me.
Justine may have thought she’d covered her tracks.
But I had a new top suspect.
6
Vicky looked worried. “Okay, I have something to admit to you.” She placed Warren into his tank and grimaced as she looked down at him. “Familiars should have developed . . . more skills by this stage. A lot more skills.”
I stared down at Warren, who put his head out to greet me. But that was about all he did.
I had kind of suspected something was not quite right with Warren. That he was less witch and more just plain turtle.
“So, he’s not speaking to you?”
“Not . . . in so many words. Quite literally.” Vicky looked up at me with eyes that were a little watery. I didn’t want her to feel bad, so I tried to reas
sure her that maybe Warren was just a slow learner.
“Yeah, a real slow learner.” She shook her head. “Something is wrong. Ruby, I don’t think Warren is a familiar. I think he is just a regular old turtle.” She scowled. “I don’t get it. I felt such a strong vibe when I was at the pet store. Like he had been put there for me to discover and bring out his powers.”
“And now?”
She shrugged. “I think he’s just a turtle.”
I stared down at Warren’s fuzzy green shell. And his sweet little innocent face. I had to agree.
But I suddenly had an idea. I blurted it out.
“Maybe we could train him. Together.”
“Really?” Vicky asked with her eyes full of hope. I checked the time. I’d been supposed to be tailing Justine that afternoon, but I had some time to spare for this important matter.
“Right. What is the first step in training a familiar?” I asked Vicky as I crouched down to stare at the very slowly moving turtle. It took him about fifteen minutes to move from one side of the tank to the other, and it was only five feet long. “Indy came to me with her sassy attitude and superiority complex intact, so have no idea how these things work.”
Vicky laughed. “Yeah. Most of them do come with that already in them. It’s weird, because I got that feeling when I picked Warren out. That’s why all of this is so confusing.”
I pated her on the back. “Can we perform a spell to help him have powers?”
“No.” Vicky shook her head vigorously. “That would be turning him into an enchanted turtle. And what we want is a familiar.”
I nodded. That made sense. I was hoping there was some sort of shortcut, considering that Justine had finished work already, and I had almost missed my chance to tail her. Oh well. I had an idea for following her tomorrow that would work even better, I hoped.
We placed a fork in the middle of the tank and asked Warren to concentrate on it very hard. We wanted to see if he could get it to move through telekinesis. We gave him plenty of time. I checked the clock. Twenty minutes had passed, and he had moved about a quarter of an inch toward it. The fork had not moved at all.
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