by Tegan Maher
“That was the commission.”
“What did she sell? The Taj Mahal?” That amount was mind-boggling. I had a Realtor friend, and her commission was usually six percent. I only knew that because when property prices dropped, she’d complained about working with a couple for six months just to earn three grand when they finally bought.
He laughed. “No. Apparently, they focus on large corporate buildings in bigger cities. I was surprised, too, but I guess office buildings and apartment buildings go for a boatload of money in some places.”
It made sense, but I’d never really thought much about it. “So she scooped a client from somebody. I’d think that happens all the time.”
“Yeah, probably, but it was almost like she made it personal. There’s this one guy, Leonard Pugh, who she seemed to target.”
“He’s the one who lost the five mil commission?”
“Yeah. Times three. Well, the other two were only worth about two mil apiece, but that’s eight million dollars. And there was a woman named Melinda Barkley who seemed like another favorite mark. In the last few months before she left, Mercy swiped two sales from her. One with a three mil commission, and the other was a mil and a half.”
I did some quick math in my head. That was thirteen million dollars. Who made that kind of money in just a few months?
“What about her dad?” I asked. Surely both parents couldn’t have been as horrible as her mother.
“Actually, he just passed a couple weeks ago. Mercy had quite the inheritance waiting on her if she’d shown back up to claim it. And boy, was good ole Mom not pleased about that. Listen, I’m gonna get off here and wrap things up. I’ll see you at home in just a bit, okay?”
“Sure thing. See ya then. Love you.” I disconnected the call.
“Before you get all mind blown,” a voice said from the backseat, “Thirteen mil is chicken feed in that world. Those were only a few of the sales I brokered while I worked for my folks. And your man there is right. I was targeting them. Leonard Pugh is a womanizing pig and Melinda Barkley is complicit. My friend worked for them for just over six months, and during that time, Leonard hit on her constantly and even got handsy a time or two. She went to Melinda about it, and Melinda told her to suck it up because it was the price of success.”
“Wow,” I said, unable to think of anything more cogent.
“Yeah, wow,” she said. “My friend was in no position to do anything, but I was.” She shrugged a thin shoulder and crossed her arms. “So, I did. And I made sure both of them knew why I was doing it, too.”
“So, all that money,” I replied. “You’re rich?”
She huffed a breath out through her nose. “You’d think that, but the truth is that the firm took most of it, which was messed up seven ways to Sunday because I earned it. I was at the mercy of my parents because I was just an executive agent, not a full partner.” Her smile turned sardonic as she put that in air quotes. “They were holding out on making me partner or payin’ me the big bucks in case I changed my mind about being a good girl and bolted.”
I had to admit, it was nice to know that my initial impression of her was right. She wasn’t the spoiled little rich girl she looked like from afar.
“But Frankie said you drained your trust fund before you left.”
She smirked at me. “Yup. I left the day I turned thirty, which is when I gained access. That was three years ago. I played my part to a tee up ’til then because it was like I had a light at the end of the tunnel. All I had to do was hang in there ’til I made it. Luckily, my parents assigned our family attorney as the trustee, and he loves me. My parents, not so much. They’re not exactly the type of people who inspire the warm-and-fuzzies. Withdrawing it wasn’t an issue.”
I shook my head. Rich people never ceased to amaze me. “So you just waltzed into the bank or wherever on the morning of your birthday and withdrew a kazillion bucks?”
Her translucent form shimmered as she gave me a small smile. “It wasn’t quite that simple, but pretty close. I’d spoken to Roman, our attorney, the week before and asked him to have all the tax documents and transfer papers ready for me bright and early on the morning of my birthday. Then yeah, I went in, signed everything, and left. I’d packed a duffle the night before, and I didn’t even look back. Took a cab to the nearest used car lot, bought a Jeep, and away I went. The only time I gave any thought at all to going back was when I heard my father died.” She sighed. “We were never close. He worked all the time, and even when he was home, he spent all his time with my brother or my older sister. I was always the disappointment. In the end, I decided showing up at his funeral would just cause more drama than it would be worth.”
I drove for a few minutes in silence, just absorbing all that. “How did you end up working as a carnival mystic to begin with?”
“Oh, that,” she said, and this time her smile was genuine. “I was driving aimlessly, just sorta following my gut. I’d stop along the way and check things out. I spent some time in Vegas, but I was trying to keep a low profile. I saw a carnival in this little tiny town in Kentucky and pulled over to check it out on a whim. I met Serena and knew that was where I was supposed to be.”
I frowned. “I’m not entirely sure you read that one right,” I said. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but it didn’t end well for you.”
She flapped a hand. “That had nothing to do with where I was at.”
I whipped my gaze to her. “Then what, exactly, did it have to do with?”
It was easier to see a blush on a shimmery ghost at night than it would have been on a living person. “Well how should I know?” she asked. “I was just assumin’ that death would find me wherever I was if it was my time. I’m gonna go. I’m feelin’ weak.”
With that, she faded out. I ground my teeth together and slapped the steering wheel in frustration. She obviously had at least some idea of what had happened to her, so I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t want to tell me. It wasn’t like her lunch money was stolen by somebody who needed it more than she did. They’d taken her life, and she didn’t even seem to care.
What’s more, I hadn’t even gotten the chance to ask her about her dad’s death or Frankie. If I could have, I’d have wrung her neck. As it was, I’d just have to wait for her to get over her snit and make another appearance. Ghosts.
Chapter 13
I flicked my blinker on to turn onto my drive, still lost in thought. When I rounded the drive to the house, I was a little surprised to see the house was dark except for the porch light. Gabi wasn’t usually a late-nighter even on the weekends. Of course, since she and Will, the local vet, had become an item, she spent a lot of time at his place.
I climbed the steps, a little sad. I liked where my life was, but I sure did miss the way it had been just a year before. Gabi hadn’t met Will yet. She, Shelby, and I had still shared the farm, splitting the chores and hanging out at night binge-watching silly stuff on Netflix and eating popcorn. Matt had lived in the apartment above the barn and had often shared morning coffee with me or kept me company while we did chores. Things had been simple.
Now everything was different. Shelby was gone, Gabi was spending more time with Will, and Matt lived with Anna Mae. Hunter was the one who did most of the binge-watching with me. We also rode our motorcycles more and spent more time out and about. Don’t get me wrong; I loved it. But I loved it differently than I’d loved the way things were before.
I gave myself a mental shake. I was mostly past the stage where I got nostalgic out of the blue, so when I did, it seemed like it was harder to push aside.
“You’re out late,” a gruff voice said as I trudged up the porch steps.
Max, our talking Donkey, gazed up at me, batting the sleep from his big brown eyes.
“Yeah, and I just wanna get inside and relax.” I pulled open the screen and pushed open the front door, flipping the living room light on as I did. Max stood and shook, dust flying from his gray fur, then stretched.<
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“You comin’ in or stayin’ out here?” I asked, still holding the door open. Max never got in a hurry to do anything, but right about then, I was about to fall over.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” he grumbled as he ambled toward me, tail swishing. “You woke me up.”
“Yeah, sorry to rush Your Highness, but us peons have been out working to pay the bills.” When he donkey-scowled at me in irritation, I raised a brow. “And buy the scotch.”
“All right, all right,” he said, his tone a little less cranky as he squeezed past me and into the house. “Speaking of, how about pouring me a nip?”
I rolled my eyes, but deep down, I was glad at least one thing hadn’t changed.
After I rinsed out his dish, I splashed two fingers of Glenlivet into it. He raised a brow and motioned toward the bowl with his nose. “It’s been a long, hot day. Keep pouring.”
“Fine, but don’t complain when I get up at seven to do the chores and you have a headache.” I blurped a little more in, then put the bottle back on the shelf and poured myself a glass of wine.
“Long day for you, too?” he asked. “The carnival can’t have been that bad.” He put his nose in the air and sniffed. “Why do you wreak of smoke? And no offense, but I think maybe your Right Guard turned left a few hours ago.”
“Thanks,” I said, collapsing into a chair and toeing off my sneakers. I practically groaned when I arched my aching feet and rolled my ankles. “Glad to take personal hygiene hits from a dude who hasn’t had a bath in a solid three months.”
“If your only option was an outdoor bathing facility and the weather hadn’t exceeded fifty degrees in that amount of time, I hardly think you’d be one to talk,” he replied, slurping a sip of his scotch. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“Fine. I ended up working for Sarah so she and Skeet could take the kids to the fair. It’s not like I had anything better to do.”
He did a circle, then lay down on the floor so that he could both look at me and reach his drink. “What do you mean? I thought you were spending the day with Hunter, Anna Mae, and Matt at the festivities.”
I swirled my wine, watching as the legs ran down the sides. “That was the plan. We went and ate then hit the carnival, but we weren’t even there for an hour when a ruckus rose. Somebody murdered the mystic.”
He blinked twice, his long, silky lashes catching the light. “As in the turbaned fraud with the fake crystal ball, a ton of gaudy jewelry, and too much face makeup? What, did someone off her for telling them they weren’t going to find love or win the lotto?”
“You ain’t right, you know that?” I shook my head as headlights swung across the curtains. “She was only thirty, and she was the real thing. I talked to her this morning. We don’t know who killed her yet.”
He shrugged a fuzzy shoulder. “Did you bring me home anything to eat?”
“Oh, crap!” I jumped out of my chair and moved toward the front door. “I forgot the food in the truck, and Hunter’s gotta be starving. He hasn’t eaten since earlier.”
I made it to the front door before Hunter was even out of the truck. “Grab the bag of to-go boxes off the front seat of my truck, please!”
He did, and I held the door open as he came through, pausing to give me a quick kiss on the way through.
“Earl figured y’all’d be hungry,” I said, taking the bags from him. I picked through and realized that rather than just make a couple boxes with meals in them, he’d packed one full of meat, another with beans and slaw, and another with nothing but corn on the cob. He’d thrown in extra because he knew Max loved it. Finally, he’d packed a surprise box with four slices of cheesecake and a container of macerated strawberries. Now that I was down with even though I’d already had my supper.
Max lifted his whiskery nose to sniff, and his lips turned up in a grin that most people would have found a little freaky looking. We were used to it though. As a man in a donkey’s body, he didn’t exactly behave like a typical animal, though it had been so long that he did enjoy a good scratch. To be fair, though, he couldn’t reach a full quarter of his body if it itched. That had to suck.
“Are you hungry?” I asked Hunter as he pulled a beer from the fridge and twisted off the top.
“Famished,” he said. “And thank you for sending food with Frankie. I wouldn’t have eaten if not for that.”
“No problem. Addy rode along to make sure she didn’t poison you.” I smiled, but he didn’t return it. Instead, he drew his brows down.
“Yeah, and I’m glad she did. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have overheard a conversation that sheds a little light on Ms. Frankie. She’s not quite as innocent as she seems, or at least she might not be.”
“What conversation?” I pulled the box of cheesecake toward me and poured some of the strawberries over a slice. “Addy didn’t report back.”
“For one thing,” my auntie said, appearing at the end of the table, “I don’t report to anybody.”
I held up a hand. “You know what I mean. You didn’t come back and tell me anything. I’m not implying that you’re a messenger or anything.” She could be so defensive sometimes.
“Fine,” she said, crossing her arms across her ample bosom. “But I had my reasons. I followed her for a while. After the phone call I overheard on the way to the courthouse, I wanted to see where she went and who she talked to.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Why couldn’t we find her in any of the hotels? I forgot to ask her where she’s staying.”
“And that’s another shady part. She ain’t stayin’ in a hotel. She’s campin’ out at the campground on Baker’s Road.”
“Camping?” I asked, trying to make sense of why an obviously urban woman would be camping alone. She didn’t exactly strike me as somebody who appreciated the great outdoors.
“Yeah, and she ain’t likin’ it either,” Addy said. “Nor is she alone.”
“She was alone at the restaurant,” I replied around a bite of the creamiest cheesecake that had ever graced a table. “And she didn’t get anything to go. Are you sure?”
She rolled her eyes so hard her messy bun wobbled. “Pretty sure I know the difference between two people and one.”
I returned the eye roll, since I’d inherited it from her anyway. “You know what I mean. Are you sure this person—he? She?—was camping with her? Could they just have been visiting?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He was definitely camping with her. He was pacin’ the site when we got there, then gave her the dickens for takin’ so long. Plus, he had that rumpled look you always get when you’re pullin’ stuff out of a duffle bag that’s been sittin’ in the humidity.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, holding up a hand and running my tongue across my teeth the clear them of the deliciously sticky graham cracker crumbs. “Back up. First, you said you overheard a conversation. In the car?”
She nodded. “Yeah, some guy called while she was drivin’. She didn’t call him by name, and I didn’t see who it was before she answered. He just kept askin’ her if she’d gotten them signed. And before you ask, he never specified what. All she said was that she’d taken care of it.”
“Is that all you got?” Max asked, his gaze a little unfocused. “Why didn’t you just show yourself and give her the scare of her life, then come down on her like a ton of bricks until she confessed? That’s what I would have done.”
She scowled at him and her form shimmered a little, something it did when she was either ready to cry, which was rare, or twist somebody’s tail into a knot, which was much more common. “Yeah, there, Mighty Mouth, I’m sure you would have. Keep it up. I may be dead, but I can still arrange for you to be gelded.”
Sometimes the two bickered like siblings, though I guess it made sense. Addy was as stubborn as a mule, and everybody knows that trait comes from the donkey side.
“Knock it off, you two.” I wagged my finger at Max. “Stop pushin’ her buttons. You know she d
id the best she could. If she’d showed herself, the girl woulda probably wrecked and killed herself.”
“Yeah,” Addy said, “then we’d never know what she was talkin’ about.”
“Really?” Hunter asked. “That would have been the tragedy there?”
Addy gave him the you watch your mouth, buster look. “Of course not. You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Yeah,” he replied, shoving the third and final bite of his sandwich into his mouth. He must have been starving, then way he Hoovered down his food. “I do. It’s just frustrating because I have no justification for questioning her. I can’t hardly say, Yeah, so my dead aunt was riding with you on your way here and she overheard you talking to some guy about papers. Can you tell me what you were talking about?”
Addy preened a little that he’d referred to her his aunt. He’d done that on several occasions lately and didn’t even seem to be aware of what he was saying, which I took as a good sign. Honestly, the man had been a peach since the day I’d met him. Well, after he’d gotten over an initial spell where he’d had to take some time to wrap his head around the fact that I was a witch. And that witches were even real, I suppose.
“So we have to figure out another way to get her to talk about it,” I said. As much as I hated that solving murders had become a family affair, it had. And our family wasn’t exactly the norm. We got just as many clues from the post-life members as we did from the living ones most of the time. After all, ghosts can be wherever they want to be without being seen.
“Can’t you do some sort of hoodoo on her, Noelle? Make her spill the beans?”
I shook my head. “I could, but it goes against the rules. I’m not allowed to use magic to make people do what I want, and that’s a biggun. I wouldn’t want the Karmic blowback from it.”
“Then what good’s it doing you?” he asked, and this time, his words were a little slurred.
“You’re getting sleepy, Max,” I said, not wanting to deal with a drunk, smarty-pants donkey. He could get pretty obnoxious, and I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it.