The Trouble with Ghosts (Here Witchy Witchy Book 3)

by A. L. Kessler

  “I thought Levi said he didn’t know the person in the picture.” Nick sipped his coffee and gave a pleasant smile.

  There was nothing like that first sip of coffee. I was actually on my second cup, which probably explained the energy. “Well, he was wrong. He didn’t think it could be this Ira Diaz. But after talking about the bodies, he changed his mind.” I watched as the system searched and files pulled up. But again everything had the listing of restricted.

  I clicked on the first file and everything was blacked out except for basic words. I snarled. “More redacted information.”

  “We need someone who has a better clearance than us.” Nick muttered. “If he’s blocked—“

  “Then he has some connection to the vampire king or politics. Yes, yes I know.” I growled. I snatched my coffee up. I took another big sip trying to figure out how to get past this. It must have been one of the reasons Levi willingly gave me the name. He’d known it would be hard to gather information from it.

  “Mad that Levi basically gave you another dead end?” He looked over his coffee. “Did you expect more after he lied to you the first time?”

  I expected better since he was so willing, but that paranoia Nick had planted in my head started to speak up again. “I’ll figure out how to get past this in the system. There has to be a way since it’s related to our case. They can’t black out everything, right?”

  “Abby, it’s not like you can hack the system. We’ll get it figured out, but let’s see what pans out with the information you got from Jerry.”

  If we were lucky we could get a trace on him somehow. A trace… I pressed my lips together. “Nick, have you ever done a trace spell?”

  “You mean one that shows events? No, I’m not that skilled. Why?”

  “I haven’t attempted one, but I was thinking maybe we could do one in the basement to figure out what exactly was happening.” I pressed my lips together. “Maybe hear a whisper of something.”

  He shook his head. “Find yourself another warlock, because I’m not trying my hand at it.”

  I had another person I could ask for help, but I didn’t think Nick would agree with it. I didn’t think anyone would. “Okay, fine. Call the bank and start getting that paperwork?”

  “I’m not your lackey, you were the one to get that information, you can call the bank.” He went back to his computer, his fingers moving across the keyboard.

  “What are you working on so hard over there?” I sipped my coffee. I set the cup down to dig my notes out of my bag.

  He didn’t answer me, but kept typing away.

  “Nick?”

  “I’m writing an e-mail to Boss Man explaining why I need a higher clearance.” He looked over at me. “Don’t worry, I’m making a case for you too.”

  I didn’t know that I could request a higher clearance. “Thanks? I think.” I went back to my notes and pulled out the information that Jerry gave me and the notes from the realtor to see who the bank was that foreclosed on the house. I threw the name of the bank into the Internet search engine and it came back with a phone number.

  I called the number on the page and waited. When someone finally answered it was in a singsong voice that told me they probably had too much coffee or had just gotten to work.

  “My name is Agent Abigail Collins. I need to speak to your manager about getting information on a former mortgage customer of yours.”

  There was a little hesitation and her voice dropped a bit. “Of course. Let me connect you to someone who might be able to help you with that.” A few beeps later elevator hold music poured through the line. I tapped my fingers on the desk, swiveled in my chair, and rearranged my pens for what felt like an hour. A glance at the clock told me that it was only twenty minutes before someone finally clicked on the line.

  “My associate told me that you needed information on an old customer, you understand that information is confidential and I can’t give it to you.” The female voice on the other end was firm, professional, but I knew that she meant business.

  “I’m aware of that, but this has to do with a murder investigation. I’d be happy to give you my badge number and my supervisor’s number to confirm who I am and what I’m doing.”

  “It will take me a while to get the information. So please, let me get your credentials and I’ll be happy to give you that information once I confirm who you are.”

  See, I could be nice and reasonable when I needed to. “That would be great.” I gave her my information plus the information I needed on Jerry Borneheart or Johnny Smiths and the property. She gave me a time frame of two hours before we hung up.

  I glanced over at Nick. “More of the waiting game. I heard that you let loose on Mason about Merick being on the scene.”

  “I did, and he shut me down pretty quick. So when Merick tries to kill you, don’t blame me.” He didn’t even glance at me.

  I chuckled. “And what makes you so sure I’m on his hit list?”

  “You haven’t seen the file they have on you. I have. The Cult fears you, Abby.”

  “They made that pretty clear, but as far as I know I’ve been cleared from any…crimes they think I committed.” I went back to my notes and took a moment to e-mail Jason to see if he had any new information for me.

  “Speaking of crimes committed…you’re coming to the coven BBQ tonight, right?”

  I cursed. “I’d forgotten about it. I promised Clarissa I would come as long as there wasn’t anything strange going on.” I held up my hand before he could respond. “Yes, I know, coven of witches and warlocks, strange covers a variety of things.”

  “That it does. It’ll be good for you. To be amongst your own kind.”

  “You know, everyone keeps saying that, but people seem to forget that last year the coven blew up my car and one of the priestesses tried to bind my magic.” I glared at him over my coffee cup. “Seriously.”

  “They were also able to cleanse you of a hex from the Cult, without many questions asked.” He raised his cup as if trying to toast me. “Family right there.”

  He kind of had a point, but I had a hard time believing that Clarissa hadn’t filled them in about the hex. Maybe that was just my paranoia speaking. “I already said that I’m going. I will go with as open of a mind as I can and try to have fun. Besides, beats sitting in an old house with my cat.”

  “Not liking the place?”

  I shrugged. “It’s outdated and I haven’t heard back from insurance, so I don’t know how long I’m going to be there or if I’m going to be staying there permanently.”

  “Would it be that bad to stay there?”

  “I don’t know. It feels like home, which is something I haven’t really had before. I mean, I have Levi’s, but this place just feels…”

  “Right.” Nick finished. “I’d stay there then, clearly there’s enough happy juju there to outweigh the bad.”

  My parents’ murder. He didn’t want to say it out loud, I could tell with the shake of his voice. It didn’t matter though; we both knew what had happened there. “Yeah, good karma vs bad. I think it’s clear to say that there was no dark imprint left on the house.” Though…there was that morning I heard a woman’s voice. I didn’t mention it out loud, I’d written it off as a bad dream. I glanced at Nick and wondered if he’d think I was crazy if I asked him to come check the house for ghosts. Probably not the best idea.

  “Anyways…” he drawled to break the awkward silence. “Hopefully Boss Man can help us with the clearance problem and the bank returns something. Where are we at until then?”

  “I need to call Agent Grace and get her briefed on the thumbs case. The timeline is right for her joining PIB.”

  “Cold case, old agent. Good plan, hopefully she’ll have some insight. I’ll go grab us more coffee while you call her.” He tapped some on his phone screen. “The cafe on the corner should be open by now.”

  I nodded. “I need something stronger, please.” I went back to shuffling through my notes
. We had so many bodies, very little details, and a vampire involved. I felt like there was something in those little details that we were missing.

  “I’ll makes sure there’s an extra shot of espresso in there.”

  He left while I was looking at my notes. I wasn’t sure if I needed more coffee or espresso, but having him out of the office would serve me well. I looked up to make sure he was gone and pulled out my phone. I called the number that I had stored for Merick.

  “Good Morning, Abigail.” His voice came across the receiver after the first ring.

  “Merick, have anything interesting to tell me about our case?”

  “Nothing you don’t already know. I’m still working on who would sabotage my runes for you.”

  “Well, I have a way we could find out. I need someone to help me do a trace spell. I need one for the basement and then we can do one for that room.” I kept my voice light. “I know you’re powerful enough to do one on your own, so helping me out shouldn’t be an issue.”

  Only the sound of him breathing subtly came through. “Are you sure you want to do that? Do you think you can handle it?”

  “I’ve seen a lot of shitty things in my life, Merick, I’m pretty sure I can handle this.”

  “Tonight’s the full moon, meet me there.”

  “I have a coven thing tonight, so I’ll message you when I’m on my way. I can’t back out without someone getting suspicious.” I grumbled. “But I’ll see you after that, say we aim for about ten?”

  “That’ll give me time to set things up. Have you done this before?”

  “Nope, this will be my first time.”

  He chuckled. “You’re in for a shock. I’ll see you then.” His line disconnected.

  I leaned back in the chair and sent Agent Grace an e-mail to invite her by the office to chat about the case. As I hit send another e-mail popped up.

  “Big news, call me?” That’s all Jason’s e-mail said. I grabbed my phone and called him.

  “Wow, that was quick.” He answered. Clicking of keys and the chirping of the printer filled in behind him. “I not only have identities on all fifteen corpses, but they are also evenly split between three races, and I don’t mean ethnical races. Those vary a little bit, but we have five humans, five lycanthropes, and five warlocks.”

  “All male?”

  “All male.” He confirmed. “Does that help you at all?”

  It helped to form some type of theory, that was for sure. “Tell me about the identities. They were all in the database?”

  “The supernaturals were, yeah, but the humans matched missing persons reports. All of them had the same last known whereabouts. I’m sending you over all the paperwork so you can do some leg work. Maybe it’ll help you break the case.”

  That would be nice. “I have a question about the blood traces that you found.”

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “I know you found different types and that’s most likely why the transfusions failed, but can you tell me if they were the same species?” My mind drifted back to what Levi had said about experiments.

  “I’ll have to check the reports and see if there was enough of the samples to tell. I’ll get on that and give you a call back.”

  “Thanks Jason.” We disconnected.

  Further down the rabbit hole I’d go, between working with Merick and dealing with something very close to the vampires. Grayson’s warning rang in my head. Mario wanted us to hand the case over, but I didn’t think I wanted Grayson to handle it. There was too much secrecy going on around the vampires involved in the case, and I didn’t want it to fall to the wayside because of it. I was going to see this through to the end.

  Nick walked back in with coffee while I was going over Jason’s notes on the victims. He’d also sent over the information on the skeletons. Those papers were set aside for Agent Grace when she came by this afternoon.

  “Looks like we have some more work to do.” He set my coffee on the desk. “What kind of information is there?”

  “We have fifteen people, five witches, five lycanthropes, and five humans.” I passed him a paper. “Our humans all have the same last known location on their missing person’s report.”

  “Calico’s Research Facility.” His brows drew together. “Do we know anything about this place?”

  “Address shows that it used to be a research center in the corner lot of the mall. Small, known for short surveys that paid a few bucks here and there. These five people all told someone that they were going in for a study and would be gone a few days because it was a medical study.”

  Nick glanced at me and I nodded. “I’m pretty sure all of our victims walked into that situation willingly, thinking that they were going to get paid big bucks for it. I’m working on pulling the owner records for that spot. I’m betting it matches up to our reporter’s allies and whatever name is on the bank loan.”

  “I’m betting you’re right.” He looked down at the papers, sipping his coffee. “Do we know about the witches or the lycanthropes?”

  I shook my head. “People were just starting to come out as supernatural creatures that long ago. I mean, witches came out long before that, but lycanthropes were a little shyer.”

  “So you’re going to go talk to Simon, right?” He looked at me. “Or his second?”

  “I’ll call Simon tomorrow, after the full moon. He’ll be in a better mood by then.” I didn’t want to call him or his second, but there were wolves involved in this case now. Occasionally we saw other types of lycanthrope pop up in cases, but wolves were the most common in this area.

  Nick nodded. “Of course, full moon and all that.”

  My phone rang and I snatched it up from the desk. “Agent Collins speaking.”

  “Agent Collins,” the bank managers’ voice came across the line. “I cleared everything with your supervisor and have compiled the papers and information you need. Because of privacy reasons, I’m not able to fax or e-mail it.”

  “Not a problem, I’ll swing by to pick it up. Thank you so much for getting it all together for me.” I hung up and looked at Nick. “I have to run to the bank for the information on the loan, will you check out the information on the Calico company?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, not a problem.”

  “Agent Grace might stop by, fill her in too if I’m not back by then?” I picked up my coffee, heading towards the door.

  “Not your lackey.” He called after me.

  “It’s our case.” I stuck my tongue out at him and continued out the door. I got to the elevator and waited for the car to come up. After a few minutes, I decided to take the stairs instead, wondering why the elevator wasn’t moving fast enough. Then I realized that I had had way too much coffee this morning. I waved at the receptionist who merely glared at me. I knew our normal one needed time to recover, but I couldn’t wait until she got back.

  I got into the Hummer and pulled out of the parking lot. A shiver crawled down my spine. An explosion rocked the ground. Glancing in the rearview mirror, the red and orange of flames reflected through the glass. Smoke billowed out of a gaping hole in the PIB building I’d just left. I swung into the closest parking lot. Sirens called through the morning as emergency vehicles closed in on the scene.

  My heart hammered in my chest as my mind turned to my partner. Nick would have to get down the stairs to get out. Or jump out a window. My partner’s life was in jeopardy and all I could do was sit in a car and watch as flames climbed through the building.

  Shouts filled the streets as people came out of their offices to gawk. I stumbled out of my car and tried to find something that I could do. I wasn’t a fireman. I wasn’t a first responder. The fire was too far away for me to control without risk of screwing up and making it worse. I was a witch that was out of reach of the one person she should have had the back of. Her partner.

  My lungs decided to work again and I gasped for air as the wail of a fire engine deafened my hearing. My phone rang and I dug it from my
pocket with numb fingers. “Agent Collins.”

  “Abigail, are you hurt?”

  Merick’s voice came from the other end.

  “No, but Nick was in the office.” There was no doubt in my mind that it was already all over the news. Next to call would be Clarissa, then Levi this evening. Tomorrow the tabloids would have some crazy headlines. “I don’t know if he could survive that.”

  “He’s smart, he probably put up a circle.”

  “Nick can’t summon a circle without a physical counterpart.” I could feel the lump in my throat. “Holy shit, I got my partner killed.”

  “Abigail. Listen to me. You did not, there’s no way to know who that attack was meant for.”

  He was right of course, but my mind refused to listen to logic. “I’m going to go.” I disconnected the phone and got back into the Hummer. I turned it around and drove as close to the scene as they’d let me. When they wouldn’t let me drive closer, I parked and got out.

  An officer stopped me with an outstretched hand. “I’m sorry ma’am, we can’t let you past here until the flames are under control.”

  “I’m Agent Collins, I won’t interfere, but I want…I want to try and keep tabs on the wounded.” This far away, I couldn’t do anything with my elemental abilities.

  He gave me a sympathetic look. “Ma’am, I can’t let you cross here.”

  He was just doing his job. I nodded, starting to feel numb. “I’ll wait here then.” I’d be out of the way, but I wasn’t going anywhere until I was sure Nick was okay. I should have still gone to the bank. I should have focused on my job. But human emotions had taken ahold of me and wouldn’t let go.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A couple hours later, the flames were gone, ambulances came and went, and I still had no news on if Nick was in one of them. PIB had sent out an emergency dispatch text message demanding all agents check in digitally by responding. As for those who had been in the building, the officer informed me that there was a body count of five, but they couldn’t release the names yet. I knew that. First of kin was always contacted before the names were released.