“Sophie?” I said, looking around the room.
“I’ve decided I’m going to stay like this,” Sophie said. “I’m going to haunt you now. I’m basically a ghost, since you can’t see me and I can walk through walls.”
“Ok, stop it,” I said, trying to tell where the voice came from. “Let me make you visible again.”
“Fine, but only because I think I might bleed to death soon,” Sophie said. “I’m in front of the door.”
I pointed to the door and cast the reversing spell at Sophie. She suddenly appeared in front of me, and I gasped when I saw her. The bridge of her nose was black, but more noticeable was the steady stream of blood pouring from her nose.
“Oh my God, Sophie, get into the bathroom!” I ordered. She made her way in there and I grabbed one of the white towels off the rack and held it to her nose. “How on earth did this get so bad?” I asked.
“I walked into a door because someone who’s supposed to be my best friend told me to and I trusted her.”
“I honestly thought I had the right spell,” I said. “I just accidentally said ‘o’ instead of ‘e’.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not the one who has to suffer for your forgetfulness. I take it back; we should have invited Charlotte to come with us. At least she remembers her spells properly.” Charlotte was a way better witch than me. And I wasn’t just saying that because thanks to me Sophie’s face was bruised and bloodied. Charlotte studied witchcraft like everything else, and with that amazing brain of hers, she had mastered spells I didn’t even know existed.
“Hey, I haven’t had to use that spell in like, at least five years. You can’t blame me for screwing up one syllable.”
“Seeing as I’ve lost at least half my total blood volume, I think I can blame you for whatever I want.”
“You haven’t lost half your blood, just, like, probably one-tenth or so.”
“Great, now you sound like your sister, but without the actual ability to do magic correctly the first time around.”
A few minutes later we managed to staunch most of the bleeding, although we’d completely ruined one of the hotel’s towels. I threw it into the bathtub, making a mental note to grab it before we left.
“Ok, let’s get into things,” I said, ignoring the scowl Sophie shot in my direction. We went back into the main part of the hotel room; Jeremy Wallace had evidently just paid for a studio. There was a double bed at one end, a small desk next to a cabinet that held a mini-fridge and a few amenities, with a TV on top. His suitcase lay open on the floor, clothes scattered haphazardly around it. Jeremy Wallace was obviously not the kind of guy to use the closet.
“Shouldn’t we like, not be touching things in here?” Sophie asked as I made my way toward the suitcase.
“Why not? It’s not like it’s really a crime scene anymore, the police already announced that they don’t think it’s a murder. I wouldn’t even be surprised if that seal comes off the door before tomorrow.”
“So what you’re saying is if we’d waited twenty-four hours I wouldn’t have an upcoming trip to the hospital to get my face X-rayed?”
“You can’t get an X-ray for a broken nose,” I replied. “Since technically it’s cartilage and not bone.”
“I’m going to pay you back for this. One day. I promise.”
“I said I was sorry!”
Sophie gave me a dark look as I began to look through the pile of clothes. There was nothing interesting there, mainly athletic gear—it seemed Jeremy Wallace spent almost all of his disposable income at Under Armour—and I started to feel like maybe we weren’t going to find any clues about where Wallace had gone at three in the morning the night before he was killed. After all, it wasn’t like Willow Bay had any twenty-four hour gyms for him to frequent.
Sophie was looking through the closets, under the bed, in the fridge, anywhere else that might give us some kind of clue. After less than five minutes, she let out a sigh.
“If I have to look like someone punched me in the face for a few weeks and we don’t even get anything out of this search, I’m going to be pissed,” she said.
“Yeah, this guy was basically the definition of a light traveler,” I said, getting a bit exasperated myself. I sat back on my haunches and looked around the room. Apart from the small suitcase, it seemed practically empty. Then, suddenly, I saw with the last of the sunlight streaming in through the window that one of the floorboards near Sophie was a bit separated from the others.
“Hey, what’s that?” I asked, motioning for her to move over as I got up.
“What?” Sophie asked, peering over to where I mentioned. “Oooh,” she continued as she noticed the floorboard as well. I pressed on it a few times and quickly found that it was actually a bit loose. With a bit of help from Sophie we managed to pry it up. I reached in and grabbed a cell phone, one of those cheap ones you can buy anywhere for around $20.
“Weird,” Sophie said. “Wasn’t there a phone found with him when he was killed?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “That one was a nice phone though, one of those new Samsungs and not the ones that spontaneously explode, either. This one’s a burner.”
“You watch way too many bad cop shows on TV,” Sophie replied.
“I do not!”
“We don’t even know if it belongs to Wallace. Maybe it was some other person who stayed here who hid it here, and they just forgot it when they left.”
“Fine,” I replied, flipping the phone open to have a look. Suddenly, something began to scrape against the door lock. Someone was coming into the hotel room. This was not good.
8
“Bathroom,” I mouthed silently to Sophie, who nodded. I grabbed the phone and slipped it in the pocket of the hoodie I was wearing, then followed Sophie into the bathroom, closing the door silently behind us. Just as I did so I heard a click of the lock; whoever was coming in was in. Sophie climbed into the bathtub, and I followed after her.
“Nonvideroa,” I whispered, pointing to Sophie. A second later I repeated the spell with myself. We were now invisible, but anyone could still feel us if they touched where they were. I hoped whoever was here was just going to ignore the bathroom completely.
The sound traveled through the closed bathroom door pretty easily, and I took Sophie’s hand as we listened to the conversation happening in the main part of the hotel room.
“It’s not going to be here, Andrew, you moron.”
“Well I didn’t see you coming up with any better ideas.”
“I can’t believe he managed to blindside us like this. The hard part was supposed to be over.”
“And now Claire says her man in New York is starting to get cold feet because we haven’t brought him the goods yet.”
“Yeah, well, Claire can just make her man be patient, can’t she? After all, it’s her fault we’re in this situation to begin with.”
“And now Kevin is thinking of ditching us all and running back down to whatever hole of a town he crawled out of and laying low.”
“Never trust the getaway man. They’re babies. Every single one of them. Now come on, give me a hand moving this fridge.”
“Hold on, Jack. Give me a minute here. I’m going through his stuff in the suitcase.”
“It’s obviously not going to be in the suitcase, you idiot. He hid it. And damn it, he took the location to his grave. I never thought he had it in him, the arrogant jerk.”
I instinctively looked over at where I knew Sophie was and raised my eyebrows. It seemed as though Jeremy Wallace had stolen something, and these men were trying to get it back.
The sound of furniture moving came from the other room, giving me a chance to try and think about what we’d just heard. What had Jeremy Wallace stolen? Was it related to his death? It absolutely had to be.
“There’s nothing here,” I heard the man who’d been called Andrew say finally.
“Fine, check the bathroom,” Jack replied. Sophie suddenly gave my hand a squeeze as my eye
s widened. This was less than ideal.
The door to the bathroom squeaked open. In front of us stood two men: one was lanky; he must have weighed one hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet. His black hair was greasy and plastered to his forehead. The other was the same height, both a little under six feet tall, but with brown hair and at least an extra fifty pounds on him, much of it in the potbelly of his stomach. When they spoke, I realized the first man was Andrew, and the second Jack.
“Geez man, how are we going to find anything in here?” Andrew asked.
“Stop whining and look around. You never know.” Jack went over to the toilet and lifted up the lid, looking inside of it, while Andrew bumped into him looking through the two drawers under the sink. It wasn’t exactly a big bathroom. Suddenly, I noticed the towel, still covered in blood that Sophie and I had used to staunch the bleeding. I wasn’t the only one.
“Ewww, there’s a bloody towel here,” Andrew complained.
“Probably because Jeremy was such a girl,” Jack replied, but I was too terrified to even roll my eyes.
I had basically stopped breathing. I was pressed up against the far wall of the shower as far as I could, as if I could become part of the wall. I was sure Sophie was doing the same thing. I didn’t think it was possible for my stress level to go any higher, but then it did.
“Why don’t you make sure there’s nothing in the shower?” Jack asked Andrew. This time I squeezed Sophie’s hand as hard as she squeezed mine.
“Seriously? You can see straight through it; it’s not like he’s hidden anything there.”
“Check the drain. Pry it up. You never know. Stop whining, you know what’s at stake.”
If I’d been visible right then, I know I would have looked like a ghost. I could practically feel the blood draining from my face. There was nowhere for Sophie and I to go. The shower was a typical hotel room shower—about four feet long, with a two foot long door at the end. No matter how you cut it, there was no way Sophie and I could slip out of here undetected if Andrew came into the shower stall. And that was exactly what he was doing. I had to stop them. I did the only thing I could think of and reached into my pocket. There was the burner phone, yes. I had to hang onto that. But there was also a tube of chapstick. Perfect.
Anything that was in my clothing when I set the spell to make us invisible was also invisible. Andrew was just opening the door when I lobbed the chapstick out into the main room as hard as I possibly could.
To my delight, it hit the dresser in the other room and made enough of a sound that both Andrew and Jack stopped for a second.
“What on earth was that?” Jack asked, and Andrew shrugged. “I’ll check it out. You finish looking in here.”
Crap. That definitely wasn’t what I was going for. Andrew reached for the bathroom door, and I realized we had literally zero options. I grabbed Sophie’s hand even harder, hoping she realized what I was about to do. As soon as Andrew stepped toward the shower I did my best football player impression and ran into him, shoulder first. Seeing as Andrew wasn’t much bigger than I was, the force of it knocked him down and he let out a yelp as I pulled Sophie behind me and we rushed past him and out of the bathroom.
“What’s the matter now?” Jack asked as Sophie and I ran to the opposite side of the bed. We had enough space now that if either man came toward us we could move around them and to the other side of the room without touching them.
“I don’t know, something knocked me over when I went into the shower.”
“What, the soap dispenser? Geez, it’s a wonder Kevin even trusted you for this job. You can’t even walk into a shower without falling over.”
“Hey, my job normally involves sitting in front of a computer screen, ok? Not sneaking through hotel rooms like some common criminal.”
“Well, if you want your share of the money, you’d better learn quick,” Jack growled, and the two of them went back to looking for whatever they were after. I kept hoping they’d give us more of a hint, but after that there was minimal talking. About ten minutes later, they realized whatever they were after wasn’t there, and they left.
“Videroa,” I said twice, and Sophie and I reappeared. Sophie’s face was about as white as mine felt.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” she said to me, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I know,” I replied, looking at the door. We had to get out of this hotel room, but at the same time I knew I needed a bit of a breather, and I was sure Sophie did as well. My heart was pounding a million miles a minute. Thank goodness Jack had simply blamed Andrew’s clumsiness for his fall. I pulled the burner phone out of my pocket and looked at it. We had to take this back home and have a look at it.
“Ok,” I told Sophie after a minute. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m fully down with that plan,” Sophie said. “That was the scariest thing I’ve ever done, and one of my dumb exes managed to convince me to go on the Hellevator when we went to that fair in Vancouver one summer. This time you have to be the first one through the wall, though.”
I supposed that was fair. Still, I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
“What? No way! I’m the one doing the magic, that means I get to pick who goes through the wall first.”
“Fine,” Sophie said, making her way to the door and opening it normally. I gasped. She’d just broken the police seal! Sophie rolled her eyes when she saw my face.
“You’re such a goody two shoes. Those other two guys didn’t have any magic abilities; they already broke the seal. Obviously.”
My face flushed red as I realized what Sophie said made perfect sense. “Fine,” I muttered as we walked out the door and headed back to the vet’s office.
We decided to look at the phone while we were still at work; no one else was here, and we didn’t want to wait the five-minute drive until we got back home. I flipped the phone open and pressed the button to read the texts.
Sophie and I huddled over the screen. There were texts from four other phone numbers, all with a 415 area code. None of the phone numbers had been saved as contacts, so there were no names attached to the numbers. I opened the uppermost message and read. Jeremy’s phone hadn’t replied to any of the texts, which were exclusively threats.
You’re going to die for this.
What the hell, man? We were supposed to be in this together?
I guess millions of bucks just wasn’t enough for you?
Where the hell are you, Jeremy?
Jeremy, call me. Claire says you’ve run off with the loot.
Sophie and I looked at each other and both raised our eyebrows as I opened up the second set of texts. Again, whoever was texting Jeremy Wallace didn’t get any replies.
You better not have taken that secret to your grave.
Where is it? Listen, text me back. We can make a deal. Just you and me, ok?
Jack better be kidding, but the guy isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs. Did you really steal the diamond? We will find you. And you’d better hope it’s one of the others that finds you first.
This time, when I read the texts, my mouth dropped open. I looked at Sophie.
“Do you think this means what I think it means?” Sophie asked, and I nodded.
“Yeah. I think Jeremy Wallace was one of the people that stole the Helena Diamond.”
9
“You know, what you’ve discovered is so frigging unbelievable I can’t even be mad at you guys for breaking into a police sealed hotel room.”
“So that’s the line, is it?” I replied. “We just have to find proof that the murder victim was part of a gang of thieves that stole a multi-million-dollar diamond, and then we’re free to commit as many felonies as we want?”
“Shut up, Angie,” Sophie said. “She’s actually not nagging us for going out and doing something for once, just leave it alone.”
“Good point,” I replied, and waited for Charlotte to continue.
“I actually think you
’re both correct. I think they did steal the diamond. After all, 415 is a San Francisco area code.”
“Who even knows that sort of thing?” Sophie muttered quietly, and I let out a giggle while Charlotte glared at her.
“So what do we know about the thieves then?”
“Well, there were five of them,” I said. “Jeremy and the four people who sent him texts.”
“Also, he was working alone in stealing the diamond from the thieves. All four of the people sent him threats about what they’d do to him if he didn’t give them back the diamond.”
“The two men who also broke into the hotel room—Jack and Andrew—they were almost certainly two of the thieves. And the other two were mentioned by name. Keith and Claire.”
“Good,” Charlotte said. “That’s a lot of information to start off with.”
“Plus I bet you that answers the question of where Jeremy Wallace went in the middle of the night the day before he was killed,” I continued. “He probably went and hid the diamond somewhere, since it seems like none of the others have it, and if the police had found it when they initially searched his room they would have announced it for sure.”
“So that means that hidden somewhere in Willow Bay is a stolen diamond worth tens of millions of dollars,” Sophie said, letting out a low whistle. The three of us looked at each other. This was serious.
“Obviously we have to go give Chief Gary the cell phone,” Charlotte said.
“Uh, absolutely not,” I replied.
“Why not? It has evidence that Jeremy Wallace was involved in the diamond theft, and gives a ton of motives for his murder.”
“And in doing so, Sophie and I have to admit that we committed a felony. I want justice for Jeremy Wallace, but I don’t want to go to jail over it.”
“Well maybe you should think about that before committing crimes,” Charlotte shot back.
A Grizzly Discovery (A Paranormal Cozy Mystery) (Willow Bay Witches Book 5) Page 5