Pawsitively Secretive

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  “Two phone calls in one day?” he asked, sounding vaguely distracted.

  “I just had an interesting conversation with Chloe’s best friend.” As she fed the cats, she recounted what Bethany had told her. “What could Chloe have found out about her mother? She’s got far fewer resources than you do.”

  “Maybe she was snooping in the house and found something Frank had hidden somewhere,” the chief offered.

  “Maybe,” she said halfheartedly.

  The chief was a silent for a long time, though Amber could hear the clack of his fingers on his keyboard, and the occasional sound of drawers rolling open or closed. “I think I have something you can help me with.”

  She had just sat down at her dining room table to get started on her next batch of cats and froze with a hand reached toward a stack of unpainted plastic pieces. “Is Amber Blackwood a consultant on the case now?”

  “A) Don’t refer to yourself in the third person: that’s weird,” he said, “and B) don’t get ahead of yourself here. I’ll ask for help when we’ve hit a dead end. Like now. During our preliminary search, he was in a heightened emotional state and wouldn’t have necessarily thought to dispose of or hide anything incriminating. We found absolutely nothing of note. But we very easily could have missed something that seemed insignificant to us but very important to him. Maybe whatever we missed, Frank realized his mistake in letting us in and that’s why he’s demanding a warrant now.”

  “And you want me to help you find what he might be hiding?” Amber asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “We spent hours in that house looking in every drawer and cabinet. We searched for secret doors to basements or attics—anywhere someone might be hiding a person—or a body. We were extremely thorough and found nothing, but if a judge is granting us a warrant, I’d like to know I did everything in my power—or yours—to be sure.” He paused, then cautiously asked, “Is there a spell, like the locator one, you could use?”

  Swallowing, Amber nodded—then remembered he couldn’t see her. “I can come up with something.”

  “Can you be ready in twenty minutes? I can come pick you up.”

  He wanted to do this now? She kept her voice steady as she said, “See you then.”

  She kept her cool until the call was disconnected, then she let out a squeak and flailed her arms. What on earth was she thinking? She couldn’t use a locator spell on something she didn’t even have a name for!

  Think, Amber. Think. This is for Chloe.

  She needed a spell like the one she had used on the receptionist at the morgue, where her magic had teased out the young woman’s guilty pleasure. Or when her magic had found Susie Paulson’s biggest recent regret. Amber needed to locate what Chloe didn’t want her father to know she’d found. Assuming, of course, that whatever this thing was—the thing she wouldn’t even tell her best friend about—was in the house to find. Assuming it was a thing at all.

  Amber consulted her grimoire, finding the spell that most resembled what she needed, and then scribbled down her own variation on a scrap of paper she could take with her. Stuffing the note into her pocket, she snatched up her purse, phone, keys, and jacket that she’d unceremoniously dumped on a chair not more than ten minutes before and made her way back down the stairs.

  Lily and Daisy Bowen were busying themselves with restocking shelves and filling orders.

  “Hey, ladies, I’m off again,” Amber said. “Thanks again for helping me out this week. I need to give you both a raise.”

  Daisy grinned. “I wouldn’t say no to that.”

  Just then, Chief Brown’s cruiser pulled up out front.

  When Amber turned to thank them again, the sisters were sharing a knowing look. Good grief, not them too! Amber sighed and then darted out the door.

  It wasn’t until she was strapped in and she and the chief were headed down Russian Blue Avenue that he spoke. “Jessica got wind of the affair rumor before I could figure out how to bring it up. She heard it in the hospital just hours after Isabelle was born.”

  “Oh no,” Amber said with a groan. “How did she react?”

  “She said I have to do chores every night for a week before she’ll consider forgiving me. She mentioned something about pulling weeds,” he said. “Thing is, I don’t think she’s actually upset at all—she just wants me to do chores. But in case she is mad, I don’t want to risk ticking her off.”

  “I’m sure you look just as dashing in a pair of gardening gloves,” she said.

  He cut her an annoyed look out of the corner of his eye, but there was no malice in it. “So, what’s your plan for when we get in there?”

  “I have a two-part plan. For the first one, can you take a right up here and drive to the end of the street? It’s a dead end that’s overgrown on three sides.”

  He stared at her in utter confusion for a split second but did as she asked.

  Once he was parked in the secluded location, she said, “Try not to have a coronary, all right?” Then she draped her jacket over her head.

  Since she and glamour spells didn’t mesh, she decided it best to keep this simple. She would change only her hair color and style—glamoured hair had a tendency to hold longer than facial features—the shape of her nose, and the color of her eyes.

  When she removed the jacket from her head, she pulled down the passenger side mirror to examine her handiwork. The chief yelped and smashed himself against the car door as if she now had three heads, rather than just one with blonde hair styled into an A-line bob. Her eyes were green now, instead of brown, and her nose was a bit wider.

  When she turned her face to the chief, he flinched again. “You can’t tell me not to have a coronary and then do that, Amber.”

  “Sorry!” she said. “But if people are already suspicious of us spending time together, isn’t it going to look even weirder to have me show up to help the police search the house? I joked about being a consultant on the case, but maybe this—” she said, gesturing to her face, “can be your new consultant. You can call me Cassie.”

  “My God,” he muttered, then gave his head a good shake. Without another word, he pulled out of the secluded area and headed back toward Russian Blue Avenue.

  When they were halfway there, she broke the silence. “Can we be in Chloe’s room in private? I think even if what we’re looking for isn’t in Chloe’s room, her energy will be strongest there. If I can tap into that, my magic will hopefully be able to lead us in the right direction.”

  “Got it,” he said, though he sounded vaguely queasy. His knuckles were white thanks to his death grip on the steering wheel.

  When they pulled up outside the Deidrick home, there was already another squad car there—and the Channel 4 news van. Not to mention a handful of reporters loitering on the sidewalk, one of which was Connor Declan.

  “Aw, crap,” Amber and the chief said in unison.

  “I thought I’d have to deal with the media vultures a little less in a small town …” he muttered, gaze focused on his rearview mirror. “Well, Cassie, I guess this … alteration was a good plan. Just say you’re a consultant on the case if you have to say anything—avoid talking if you can help it. Absolutely don’t go into details. If they don’t have details, they can’t cross-check.”

  With a nod, she let herself out of the car. A couple of the reporters jogged over when they spotted Chief Brown, holding out recording devices as they asked him what had changed in the case that made a judge agree to issue a warrant.

  Is Mayor Deidrick responsible for the disappearance of his daughter?

  Is it true that Mayor Deidrick is a suspect in the death of his late wife?

  Is there a connection between Chloe’s disappearance now and the mysterious death of Shannon Pritchard?

  Carl, Garcia, and a handful of other officers joined Amber and the chief as they all moved as a unit toward the house. None of the officers said anything, just marched forward as if the reporters didn’t exist. Even goofy Carl was doing a good
job of keeping his mouth shut.

  When they were a foot from the door, Chief Brown, without breaking stride, said, “We cannot discuss the details of this case at this time,” voice loud enough so the gaggle of reporters could hear him.

  Amber kept her head down largely because she didn’t want to have this fake face of hers recorded and wind up on the news. All she needed was Connor scrutinizing the footage for long enough to realize how similar this face looked to Amber’s. Why had she agreed to this so readily?

  In a matter of minutes, they were inside the mayor’s house. Frank Deidrick was his usual gracious self, but that simmering rage was just below the surface—Amber could see it. She could practically feel it.

  “And who is this?” the mayor asked the chief, though Frank’s attention was squarely on Amber. “You look very familiar. Have we met before?”

  Amber kept her voice high and light. “I don’t think so.”

  “If you would excuse us, mayor,” the chief said, a hand on Amber’s lower back as he gave her a gentle push toward the hallway that would lead to the staircase. He produced a copy of the warrant and handed it to the mayor as he walked past him. “Please give my officers room to search the premises. Failure to do so will complicate matters for you even further.”

  The chief barked out orders to his officers. They broke off into pairs as they got their assignments. Amber then followed the chief up the stairs. Chloe’s room was to the right of the upstairs bathroom, the door standing open. The chief pulled a pair of white latex gloves out of a pocket and handed them to her, then put on a pair of his own. Once she had them on, he motioned to the bedroom door with his chin. Amber walked in first.

  The room had a queen-size bed pushed into a corner on the left side of the room, piled high with fluffy pillows and blankets. Discarded jeans and shirts were strewn on the end of it, as well as on the floor around it, along with jackets, shoes, and socks. A closet with two dark-wood French doors stood open, the rack inside so laden with clothes that the bar the hangers hung from bowed in the middle. The floor of the closet was a jumbled mess of more clothes, shoes, boxes, and bags.

  On the right side of the room was a large vanity with a rectangular mirror resting above it. The outside edge of the mirror was hung with fairy lights, a handful of printed-out pictures stuck to the glass. Amber walked to the table, stepping over clothes, books, and shoes.

  The pictures featured Chloe and her friends, Chloe laughing more often than not. Amber recognized Bethany Williams in most of the photos, the girls with their arms flung over each other’s shoulders or around waists. Almost every picture seemed to be taken at school or in this bedroom—no pictures by lakes or pools on a hot summer day.

  The tabletop was littered with what looked like homework—her laptop, a book with an orange highlighter resting on the open spine, scribbled notes in Chloe’s looping scrawl. In a partitioned tray to the right of her schoolwork were makeup pots, eyeshadow pallets, bouquets of brushes, and sticks of lip gloss, lipstick, and mascara. Above the vanity, a giant wooden, painted-black C hung on the wall.

  A set of white drawers sat on either side of the vanity, the tops piled with more clothes and framed photos.

  “Did the room end up like this after the first search, or …” Amber asked, looking around at the mess.

  The chief shut the door, a soft whoosh sounding as the door passed over the large navy-blue throw rug that covered most of the floor. He pressed his back against the door. “Nope. I think this is just what it means to be a teenage girl. You were a teenage girl once; your room didn’t look like this?”

  “Aunt Gretchen was not a fan of clutter,” Amber said. “Just think—in seventeen years, Isabelle’s room could look like this.”

  The chief grumbled. “We searched this room thoroughly, even looking for false bottoms in drawers, under her mattress, or things stuffed into the bottom of boxes. Came up empty.”

  Sticking her gloved hand into her pocket, Amber pulled out her newly crafted spell—one for finding what has been hidden. Namely, finding what Chloe hid from her father specifically. Amber walked back to the vanity and found a picture taped there of Chloe and Frank, the two sitting outside a restaurant, Frank with his arm draped over the back of Chloe’s chair, and Chloe with her eyes squeezed shut and her tongue out. Who had taken the picture? Amber wondered. Francine? A friend of Chloe’s? A waitress?

  Relaxing her shoulders and doing her best to calm her mind despite the chief’s curious gaze boring a hole into the side of her head, Amber uttered the spell. When her magic perked up, waiting eagerly for its assignment, Amber focused her attention on Chloe’s face first. What did you not want—and then she focused on the easy smile of Frank Deidrick—him to find?

  Just like with the locator spell, her magic pulled her, as if a rope had been tied tight around her middle and someone on the other end yanked. It yanked her backward, away from the vanity and back toward the other side of the room. She almost rolled her ankle as she stepped on a tennis shoe. Her magic was leading her toward the third set of drawers in the room, this one resting against the wall to the left of the closet.

  Amber tugged open drawers and riffled through each one, fingers searching for any hidden catches in the tops or bottoms of the drawers, just as the chief and his officers had apparently already done. The chief, thankfully, didn’t patronize her for going back over old territory. He kept perfectly quiet as he let her work.

  When all the drawers revealed nothing, she took a step back, thinking maybe she’d been wrongly drawn toward the dresser. But her magic gently pulled her forward again.

  It was like playing a game of hot/cold with a voiceless disembodied friend. Step back: Cold! Step forward: Warm.

  She peered behind the dresser; the gap between it and the wall was thin. Inching the dresser away from the wall a fraction, she ran her latex-covered fingertips over the dresser’s back. Warm! her magic urged.

  At the base of the dresser, there was a half-oval cut out below the last drawer, leaving an inch space between it and the floor. Amber knew the cutout was for decoration, but she didn’t understand what purpose it could serve other than as an entry point for dust bunnies to congregate and be lost forever. Amber lay flat on her stomach and peered into the dark space. Warmer! her magic said.

  Using the flashlight on her phone, Amber angled the light into the space, revealing a whole herd of dust bunnies, a bottle cap, a lone sock, and a couple of hair ties. With her cheek pressed to the navy blue throw rug, Amber saw a dark yellow something poking out from the top of the small, dark space. She reached her hand in, palm up; the top of the oval cutout was low enough that the wood gently scraped against her forearm. She flicked her wrist up, her fingers searching … searching.

  Hot! said her magic, and then her fingertips grasped something smooth. It crinkled like paper.

  After a pull here, and a yank there—the unfinished edge of the cutout scraping harder against Amber’s skin—something detached from the bottom of the shelf. It sounded like masking tape being ripped off the top of a packing box. A heavy packet of paper hit Amber’s gloved hand and she carefully dragged it out, like a waitress carrying a tray on an open palm.

  She sat cross-legged on the cluttered floor, her phone lying beside her, and held the half-inch-thick packet with both hands. Nothing was written on the large manila envelope, the small copper prong clasp on the back bent down to keep the flap closed. She had never been more desperate to open anything in her life, but she figured the chief would have to analyze everything first. She glanced up at the chief, who still stood with his back pressed against Chloe’s door.

  After several moments of him staring at her a little slack-jawed, he said, “Your face is back.”

  Amber noticed then that her shoulder-length hair was down around her shoulders and back to its usual brown, rather than the blonde A-line bob she’d walked in here with.

  The chief walked over with his hand out, the white glove in sharp contrast to his black jac
ket. A little reluctantly, she handed him the packet. He waded across the sea of clothes to get to Chloe’s vanity and placed the envelope on top of Chloe’s laptop before picking up both. “Can you change your face back to Cassie’s so we don’t draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves?”

  Shoulders sagging, she got to her feet. All that excitement and work to find the packet and now she would have to go back to the Quirky Whisker. Her curiosity about what Chloe had squirreled away was sure to give Amber an ulcer before the chief ever got around to telling her what was in the envelope.

  “We’ll need to be here another hour or so before I can feasibly make up an excuse about driving you back to the station,” he said. “So stop pouting. In an hour, we’ll both get to see what’s in this thing.”

  Chapter 13

  As promised, after an hour of Amber doing her level best to act like she actually belonged on this search-and-seizure job with the chief of police, she and Chief Brown left the Deidrick home. When the chief told Garcia that he needed to take Cassie Westbottom—Amber had almost burst into laughter at the improved last name of her consultant-persona the chief had come up with on the fly—back to her hotel because her flight left in a few hours, Garcia had hardly batted an eye. The officers still had half of the Deidrick house to search, so they would be preoccupied for a while, giving Amber and the chief ample time to find out what was in the manila envelope.

  They got into a very involved argument about whether or not it was better for Amber to walk into the police station as Amber, or to keep the Cassie persona going. In the end, they decided that they were thinking about this too hard. While driving along a particularly deserted stretch of road, Amber tossed her jacket over her head and uttered three reversal spells. A shock to the system was a better, quicker way to remove a glamour, but she figured the chief wouldn’t readily agree to issue her a quick slap across the face—especially not while he was driving.