“Is that the last thing you remember?” I asked.
“I was afraid. I’ve never been afraid like that before, ever in my life. I think I was downstairs on the sidewalk. Is that where it happened?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. John had been murdered in the doorway of the Royal Street house. Not just in the doorway — he was killed by the door itself, with a spell set by my cousin Adam, as part of the plan to inherit the family dynasty. I had no intention of explaining that to John. He’d have to come to that knowledge on his own.
John looked thoughtful. “You said Frank was Marie-Eglise’s eyes and ears in the Royal Street house.”
Drat. That bloody cat was going to ruin everything, after all.
“He was.”
John met my eyes. “He saw what happened, didn’t he?”
I was determined not to cry. I sat still as death.
“And you can’t tell me,” John said. It wasn’t a question. “Because that might be the reason I’m still here,” he said softly.
I realized that I was holding my breath.
“If I know how I died — if I know who killed me — I might just disappear,” John whispered. “I’ll lose you.”
“We could lose each other forever,” I murmured.
John sat back in his chair. “Then I won’t ask.”
“What?”
“If the answer could cost me my life with you, then I won’t ask the question.”
Leave it to John to cut to the chase. “But what about the nightmares?” I asked.
“This whole thing is a nightmare. I can live with them — “he smiled at the irony — “if it means staying with you.”
“A devil’s bargain,” I said under my breath. It was a terrible price to pay to resolve an impossible situation, but John was right.
“We always promised there’d be no secrets between us. Can you keep this one?” John asked tenderly.
“I can,” I promised. “I can, if it means I can keep you with me.”
“A devil’s bargain, then,” John whispered.
♦
We slept in the next morning. I lingered at home all afternoon, not wanting to leave John after I just got him back. It took everything I had to force myself out of bed and get ready for work. I skipped dinner and chatted with John on the couch, sitting close enough to touch him but knowing that I could not. We made small talk and caught up on the last two years — at least my last two years.
John’s memory was blank. I told him about my move from New Orleans, and how I found the condo and started Pentacle Pawn. We both avoided the topic of his death. That would come later. John swore that he would be right there in the condo when I came home, but I wasn’t ready to trust it. Truth be told, neither was he. I didn’t want to let him out of my sight.
Frank finally called me on it. When I went into the kitchen to get coffee, he sprang up onto the kitchen counter and repeatedly threw glances at the stove timer.
“You look like one of those ’50s kitten clocks,” I teased.
He ignored the barb. “Shouldn’t you be going to work?”
I heard John stirring in the bedroom. “Maggie? You still here?” he called.
“In the kitchen,” I called back.
“It’s late,” he yelled back. “Shouldn’t you be going to work?”
Frank looked smug. I brushed him off the counter as I headed for the bedroom.
John was sitting on the edge of the bed now. He wore his favorite Saints jersey and a battered pair of jeans that I’d tried to toss out a dozen times while he was still alive.
“I still have a few minutes. How are you doing?”
He flashed me his lopsided grin. “Still dead.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Really,” he said, “you don’t have to hang around here and entertain me. I understand you have a business to run.”
“You can come along if you want to,” I said, but as the words left my mouth, I wondered exactly how that would work.
“Not sure that I can. Aren’t ghosts supposed to be stuck in the place where they were killed, or something?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “We’d have to give it a try.”
“So, what would I do there?”
“Hang out, I guess.”
“Just watch you work, then?”
He was right — it didn’t sound like much fun when you put it that way. “So you’d rather stay here?”
John looked around the apartment as if he was seeing it for the first time. “It’s a nice place. I don’t feel like I really belong anyplace, not like I did back in our apartment. You built this for yourself; there’s not much of me here.”
I avoided the obvious pun: in his current transparent state, there wasn’t much of him anywhere. “As far as I knew,” I said, “you were gone forever. I’m so glad you’re back. We’ll just have to work this out. If you are more comfortable here, then that’s what will do.”
“So, you work nights now, right?” I nodded.
“That’s what suits my clients. But I can probably cut back a little, maybe get Lissa to do a few more shifts...”
John was shaking his head. “You’ve made a life for yourself here. Like you said, we’ll figure it out.”
I blew him a kiss and headed back to the kitchen to make a quick snack before I left for work. Frank was waiting. He hopped up on the table and sat primly next to my plate of avocado toast, curling his tail across his front feet.
“So, what did the apparition say when you told him how he died?” Frank looked smug.
I made a face. “He’s not the apparition. He’s John. And he said he doesn’t want to know. I agreed not to tell him.”
“What do you mean, you’re not going to tell him? Your husband has a right to know. It’s not natural.”
I nearly laughed out loud. “Says the talking cat.”
“I really think I should say something,” Frank said.
“Fortunately, he can’t hear you.”
Frank flipped his tail impatiently. “I know what you’re doing,” he said. “You just want to keep him around.”
“He’s my husband, Frank.”
The look on Frank’s face said he wasn’t convinced. Cats are devious, even if they’re not familiars. They tend to want to get their own way. I realized that I would have to make myself clear.
“Under no circumstances are you to try to convey this information to John,” I said, my voice firm. “Do you understand me, Frank?”
I got a grudging shrug of his shoulders.
“I want your word on it.”
I expected Frank to take this as an insult, and I wasn’t disappointed. Cats believe that they are superior to all other creatures, and their word should never be questioned — even when they are lying through their pointy little teeth.
“I mean it, Frank. You will not tell John the circumstances of his death. You will not arrange for him to find out by accident. You will not manipulate the situation so that he discovers it for himself. You will not do any of the sneaky things that cats do when they believe they are in the right. Do I make myself clear?”
Frank looked out across the city and said nothing.
“More to the point — I expect you to assist me in keeping this information from him unless he tells me that he’s changed his mind. This is not your secret, Frank; it’s mine. Your job is to help me keep it.”
Frank twitched his tail. This was coming down to a battle of wills. I lifted him from the table and swung him around to face me: one hand folding his tail under his bottom, the other on his chest with my thumb and forefinger spread under his foreleg joints. “Swear it.”
The first one to look away lost everything. We locked eyes. Frank’s vertical pupils constricted to black slits. He wrinkled his nose and rolled his ears back flat. His whiskers stood alert as he opened his mouth to hiss.
“Swear it.” He knew I would not ask again.
Frank was panting, tasting the air. I could feel his heart racing un
der my hand. I moved his face within inches of mine.
All of our lives hung in the balance for a moment. When his answer finally came, it was so soft I barely heard it.
“I swear,” the cat said, squinting his eyes. I hope that wasn’t the feline equivalent of fingers crossed.
♦
It was inevitable that Frank and John would clash. I just didn’t think that it would be over peanut butter.
Frank has a discriminating palate, but he’s a sucker for a peanut butter sandwich. I’ve made one to take to work with me, but I got distracted and left it on the counter when I stepped out of the kitchen for a minute. When I came back, half of my sandwich was gone. The other half had Frank-sized bite marks all around the edges.
“Frank!” I yelled. “Get in here!”
Of course, no cat appeared. What I got was John, who came at a run.
“Are you okay?” he gasped, out of breath. It struck me funny: how does a ghost get out of breath?
John didn’t see the humor in it. “What’s wrong?” He spotted the ravaged sandwich.
At that moment, Frank peeked around the pantry door. John made a grab for him, but his hands passed right through the cat’s body. Frank howled his indignation.
“Enough! Sometimes, I wish I could send the both of you to your rooms,” I hissed.
“I’m done,” John said, retreating to the couch. He curled up into a ball, his arms around his knees. ESPN suddenly blared from the TV.
“Finally!” Frank mumbled to himself. He rubbed up against my leg, curling his tail around my calf in a proprietary way. I shook him off.
John was frustrated, Frank was sulking, and I was pretty much over both of them.
Which gave me an idea.
I started with Frank. “Get up here!” I ordered, pointing to the countertop. I wanted him at eye level for this. He complied, but he was wary.
“Frank,” I began, “you know more about magic than most of the witches I know. I think your talents are wasted around here.”
Frank shot a dirty look at John. He was pretty sure I was shipping him back to New Orleans.
“What would you think about moving to the shop?” I asked him.
He was surprised, but he thought it over. I had his attention. I pressed on. “You loved hanging out in the New Orleans shop. How many times did Marie-Eglise trip over you while she was trying to help a customer?”
Frank narrowed his eyes. “My expertise was valued there,” he said haughtily.
“And I value it, as well. So let’s think about moving you full time to Pentacle Pawn. You’ll have the run of the place. You can keep an eye on things when I’m not there.”
Frank was listening now, and I could see that John was taking in the conversation from his foxhole on the couch.
“We could set it up to your requirements,” I coaxed. “A nice overstuffed chair of your own, maybe?”
“Too soft,” Frank said tentatively. Gotcha — I’d managed to move him past the question of whether he was moving. Now, we were just negotiating the terms.
“A nice cushion in the window seat,” Frank said.
“Sorry, no windows.”
Frank scowled, but before he could voice his objection, I jumped in. “There’s a cozy hollow under the main counter. We could outfit it to your specifications.”
He looked skeptical. “Perhaps. I’d have to see it.”
Victory! “You can go in with me tonight, and we’ll start drawing up the plans.”
#
It didn’t take Frank long to take over the place. Lissa, who couldn’t hear him, thought that he was adorable. He did his best to ingratiate himself with her, weaving between her ankles and winding his long ginger tail around her calf.
“What a sweet kitty!” Lissa cooed.
I caught his eye and raised an eyebrow.
“Just making a good first impression,” he said. I could hear him purring loudly. I rolled my eyes.
“Frank will be staying here for a while,” I told Lissa. “Bronwyn said she thought she saw a mouse up in the front store. I want to be sure we don’t have a problem.”
“Mice?” Frank exclaimed. “You didn’t say anything about mice.”
I shook my head just enough to reassure him. Lissa was oblivious — she was totally focused on the sweet kitty.
Frank made himself at home. The first night, he explored. He sniffed every item on display and rubbed up against all of the furniture. I drew the line at my desk, making it clear that he was not to mess with my paperwork or move things around.
By the end of the evening, Frank had decided to stay. The ambiance suited him, he said, and he Lissa were, as he put it, simpatico. Best of all, the shop was a ghost-free zone, and he would never have to deal with John again.
I was relieved. My own home life would be much less stressful with John and Frank separated. Frank, with his extensive knowledge of magic and his inclination to snoop, might even turn out to be helpful around the shop.
I had no idea how prophetic that was.
♦
Scottsdale has a cute little free trolley that makes the rounds of Old Town, but the next evening I decided to stretch my legs a little and walked to the shop. A few couples sat in the outdoor cafés, enjoying the warm evening but it was a weeknight, and the sidewalks in Old Town were quiet.
You know that crawly feeling you get at the back of your neck when someone is watching you?
I fished in my pocket and found a penny. I pretended to drop it on the sidewalk. When I bent down to pick it up, I looked past my ankles but saw no one behind me. That didn’t mean there was no one there.
I turned the corner and went on my way, but a block from the alley it happened again. I dropped another penny on the sidewalk, but there was still no one there. Either my imagination was getting the better of me, or someone was really, really good at tailing me.
I was out of breath when I got to the alley shop. As soon as I was in the door, Frank caught the look on my face. “Tell me,” he said. So I did.
By the time I had finished, Frank had made up his mind. “We need to see what this Simon character is up to. You’re safe here whenever you’re at work, right?” I nodded — no way Simon was getting past the door spell. “So if he’s tailing you, I’ll tail him right back. We’ll figure it out.”
Before I could respond, Frank had slipped outside.
♦
Frank was back just after midnight.
“I lost him,” Frank said, “so I figured I’d stake out the alley from across the street at the tapas place.” The café across the street from the main pawn shop was a particular favorite of Frank’s: the waitresses slipped him appetizers. “I wasn’t there ten minutes before a young guy walked halfway up the alley, looked your door over and came back out again. He didn’t even stop, just went on his way.”
“What did he look like?”
“Dark hair, tall — I thought there was a resemblance between him and your friend Hannah.” Hannah had been a frequent visitor at the Royal Street house, and she’d always taken a minute to stroke Frank’s fur and pet him between the ears until he purred.
“Could it have been Michael?”
Frank thought about it. “I haven’t seen him since he was a little boy. But, maybe.”
“Where did he go from here?”
Frank shifted his weight and settled his tail across his feet. “No idea. I was watching the alley, not him — at least at that point. I sat there for another hour and a half. But then he came back.”
“And this time you followed him.”
“This time, he had my attention. He did that same suspicious move: walk down the alley, check out your door, walk back out to the street.”
Weird. There is no open/closed sign on my door, no windows into the alley. Someone standing out there would have no indication whether the shop was open or who might be inside. Unless you are a client, you’d never know that there’s a shop there, at all.
“I decided to follow
him this time. He wandered around Old Town, looking in the windows of all the restaurants. One time he went inside, but he came right back out again.”
I got it. “He was looking for Simon.”
Frank nodded. “He found him. While I was trailing Michael around town, Simon came back and grabbed a table at the tapas bar. Michael started yelling at him right there in the restaurant. He just wouldn’t shut up. Simon looked embarrassed, but he wouldn’t rise to the bait.”
That’s Simon for you, I thought: cool under pressure. From what Hannah had told me, the retribution would come later. “So what was the fight about?”
He made a face. “Something about some girl named Amber and how she belonged to the younger one, how Simon wasn’t going to take her.”
“Amber isn’t a girl. It’s a gemstone, a family heirloom I’ve got down in the vault. I’m holding it for Hannah.”
“I don’t get it,” Frank said.
Neither did I, but I was determined to find out.
Chapter Eight
I was afraid that I had been neglecting Daisy, so I took her for a late lunch the next day at her favorite vegetarian bistro.
“How’s John doing?” My husband had always been one of Daisy’s favorites.
“He’s doing pretty well, actually. He’s turned into a sort of human remote control.” I told her about the earbuds and the late-night ESPN binges. “I’m sure he’d love to see you.”
“I’m not sure I’d be able to see him,” Daisy said with a wry little smile, “at least not yet. He’ll let you know when he’s ready for company. Meanwhile, let that boy know I love him like the moon and stars.”
We spent a few minutes munching autumn roles and catching up, falling back into our comfortable, familiar rhythm. She was telling me about how her garden back home was doing this year — she has this amazing garden in her tiny backyard where she grows all of the herbs she needs for her spells and incantations — when we became aware that someone had stopped by our table. I looked up to see Simon smiling down at us.
“Maggie! I’m so happy to run into you!” he purred.
“Simon!” Well, this was going to be awkward. I decided I may as well dive in head first. “I was just thinking about you. I met Hannah yesterday.”
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