I orient myself, then turn toward where Angelo’s office is housed - in the same building the Council judged me trouble less than twenty-four hours ago.
My mother is lost. I’m going to be causing trouble, all right.
Blakey’s house sits on a slight rise, looking out over town and affording me a great view of the streets below. Nothing is moving, so I should be in the clear. Occasionally I see a small animal, probably a squirrel, dart across the street in front of me, but nothing else until I get to building I need. It casts bigger shadows than any other place in Jagged Grove, and I feel my first hint of nerves at what I’m about to do.
I’m afraid it’s the only way, though. I would love to just ask Angelo, but Blakely was right - he’d just arrest me and send me home again. Pigheaded man.
I duck into the shadows and glance along the expanse of the building, then see the first real problem with this plan - I have no idea which office is Angelo’s, or even Chief Carter’s. Either place will probably hold the answers I need, but I have ten windows on two floors to check before I can figure out the right location.
Unless I get lucky. I’m not very lucky these days.
The wall behind my back is textured with stucco, and it scratches my fingertips as I make my way around the back of the building, trying to figure out where to start. I’m half afraid that the building is protected by magic and will electrocute me or something when I lean against it, but that doesn’t happen.
At one end, I see that the curtain to this office is pushed back a little, allowing me to see inside. Unfortunately, it’s so dark that doesn’t matter. I chew on my bottom lip for a second, deciding what to do. The best thing, first of all, is to get out of sight. Any casual passerby - not that I’ve seen any - could report me, and I don’t want that to happen. I look around for a moment and spot one of the planters that line the sidewalk. The poor petunias in it probably won’t survive, but I’ll sacrifice a few flowers to get my hands on the information I need.
They’re large, so I have to drag one over and then dump it sideways before I can turn it upside down to stand on it. Now I can see inside a little better, but that doesn’t help - I see the outline of a couple of desks and a filing cabinet in the corner. It might be Angelo’s, it might not.
In the end it doesn’t matter, because that window is locked. I think about finding a rock and breaking the glass, but I’m positive that will at least set off an alarm somewhere. I’d rather try another window.
That requires climbing down again, dragging the planter to the next black square, and trying again. No dice here, either. After three more windows, I’m sweaty and tired.
This is dumb, and I’m getting impatient with myself. I kind of wish I’d been a criminal in my former life in Raleigh - I would at least know what I’m doing, and I think it would have prepared me better for my time in Jagged Grove.
Then I remember who - and where - I am, and almost smack my forehead for being such a nitwit.
I stare at the window, gather my energy, and flick a finger. A small click tells me I’ve succeeded, and I smile in the darkness. I’m getting better at being a witch.
A sharp clapping sound almost makes me fall off my planter. I grab the window sill and swallow a scream before I see a figure move around the corner toward me. I squint at it, heart racing.
“I wondered how long it would take you to do that.”
“Jones! You scared me half to death, you idiot.”
I’ve never wanted to hit someone so badly, ever. Except for maybe Angelo - but that’s a longstanding goal. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Keeping an eye on you - good trick with the ring, by the way. I wasted probably twenty seconds following the wrong lead.”
“Did you think I would leave it on, after I knew the truth?”
He’s close now, and I can look down into his face, even though I still can’t make out most of his features in the dark. “I kind of hoped that you would forget about it. You have a lot on your mind.”
“I didn’t forget. Now - would you please leave?”
He chuckles. “Nope, Babe. I need to help, and you’re about to get yourself into a world of trouble.”
“I am not - I opened this window all by myself, and I’ll close it again once I’m inside. What’s the problem? No one will even know I’m here.”
“You are breaking into the Council chambers. Of course they’ll know you’ve been here. Kelee will be able to sense you the minute she steps inside in the morning.”
I raise my chin. “I’ll be long gone by then.”
“But she knows you - it won’t take long and Angelo will know you’re back. We don’t want that, do we?”
We really don’t.
“Besides - we have a more immediate problem.”
He points toward the window I just opened, and suddenly a flicker catches my eye. Jones tugs at my shirt until we’re both against the side of the building, out of sight. “Sither,” he whispers into my ear. “Saw him coming in.”
I don’t answer. Why would the coroner be running around in there in the middle of the night? “Maybe he just forgot something.”
“He doesn’t work in there. His office is over at the fire house.” A faint metallic ping from above makes him pause. “He’s going through the Council files. This is their records room.”
“Shh.” The flicker I saw is a flashlight, sweeping the ground just in front of us now. I scoot as close to the gray stone wall as I can and hope he doesn’t look straight down. Jones is taking deep, steady breaths beside me. I take his hand, just in case he decides to try being a hero. All I need is for him to go all werewolf, corner Sither, and getting us both arrested.
“What do we do?” There’s a slim chance that if we stick close to the building, we can get away before he sees us.
“Wait him out.”
I stare at Jones in the darkness. “What if we get caught?”
“We won’t.”
“Because...?”
“Because he’s in a hurry. Whatever he’s doing, he doesn’t want to get caught in there, either.”
A new noise makes me duck, and Jones ducks with me, grabbing my head and tucking it into his chest as we sink into the triangle where the building meets the ground. Above, the window squeaks slightly as it opens.
I’m holding my breath and frozen in position, silently willing Sither to look away. To go away. Every time his light sweeps by us, I wish I knew an invisibility spell, if such a thing even exists. If we get caught, I’m dead.
A few more noises, and then silence. After a couple of beats, we don’t see the light anymore. “Is he gone?” I ask.
Jones pats me reassuringly and slowly stands up, still against the wall. I wince as his body scrapes the rough stone, sure that we’ll be heard, and caught, in another moment.
“He’s gone. Let’s go,” Jones whispers, then grabs my hand and pulls me onto my feet.
“Why would he break into the Council’s office? Doesn’t he have access to these files anyway?”
“I doubt it. Maybe just the files he’s working on at the moment? Or maybe he has to come to Angelo for any information he needs. I could see Angelo being petty like that.”
“Isn’t he on probation or something? Blakely told me he sank all the boats in the harbor.” At least I think that’s what he told me. I can’t remember. “I think.”
“He is, but that just makes his problem worse. Sither is a bit of a drama queen, and putting him on probation just means he has to do more to get attention. I hate to think of why he’s in there, to be honest.”
Chapter Ten
I’m tired of talking about Sither, when the answer to my mother’s problems might be just inside that window. “OK. You don’t want me going in there, so what do you propose?”
“Glad you asked.” He turns toward the window, snaps his fingers, mutters something I don’t quite catch, and then nods his head toward my blind spot, just over my shoulder. I twist around and grit my te
eth.
“Show-off.” A filing cabinet is sitting in the grass about two feet from me, complete with a picture of Kelee and some man, plus two pens and a framed embroidery that says World’s Best Wife. I didn’t even hear it land.
“You’re welcome. Now they will never know the difference.”
“What about your magical signature?”
He shrugs in the darkness. I can barely see it. “Why would they look? Nothing will be out of place in the morning. No residual magic in the air, and no obvious clues, like footprints in the carpet or things misplaced. You really need to start using your power, Trinket.”
He has a point. I won’t admit it, though.
“Well, then, now what?” I ask, hopping down from the planter and turning it upright again. The poor petunias probably died for nothing. The filing cabinet looks somehow ominous when I glance at it, darker than the shadows around it.
“Now we look, silly.” He pats my arm. “Let’s see what secrets Angelo is keeping.”
He strides over to the cabinet and drags open the top drawer. Suddenly, I’m very glad that he’s here, regardless of the trick with the ring. Jones is on my side, and I need all the help I can get.
“We’re just going to stand out here and rifle through a filing cabinet in the middle of town? Isn’t that sort of...dumb?”
He looks up, a file in his hand. “You’re right.” More mumbled words and a couple of hand gestures, and I suddenly feel like the air is heavy and closing in on us. I take a deep breath, but a small, bright flash of light sears my eyes.
“Cloaking spell,” he says, but his head is already back in the open drawer. “A new one I’ve been working on.”
“Why didn’t you do that a minute ago?”
Jones looks at me patiently. “Because he would have seen the light. It isn’t perfect yet.”
“Oh.”
“Cut me some slack - I’m a werewolf.”
I want to help, but the filing cabinet isn’t big enough for both of us to look. I go over to it anyway. “Move. I’m doing this,” I say, shoving his shoulder gently.
He huffs in surprise and doesn’t move. “Do you even know what you’re looking for?” he asks, offence heavy in his voice.
“Do you?” I shoot back.
“Yes - information on Bilda and these murders.”
“What name are you looking under?”
“I’m just looking.”
“You don’t even know her last name. Get out of the way.”
Score one for me - he steps aside, but not much.
“I said move.” I shove him a little harder, enough to make him take a step. Then I hear a noise. “Did you just growl at me?” I ask, not stopping my fingers as they rifle through the files. Arbogat, Aster, Avery...Baccius. Ballat.
Banks, Bilda. My fingers shake as I pull out the file, surprised at how thin it is between my fingers. This is her entire Jagged Grove history - all two months or so of it. I start to close the drawer, then pause. If Mom’s is here, mine should be, too, and I want to see it.
Except that it isn’t here. The next name in the drawer is Butts.
A chill runs down my spine, and I look again, then rifle through the other files. Maybe it got misplaced. I see about twenty files after Mom’s, but no - mine isn’t there. Maybe it’s still in the Council chambers, on somebody’s desk or something. Angelo might be closing out the paperwork, or waiting for a report that I’m safely back on Earth. It could be anything.
Anything at all.
So why does my missing file make me so nervous?
I turn back to Jones and see that he isn’t there, which startles me, but then I see him doing something with the planter.
He flips it upside down again, and then stands on it, then hops up and uses his arms to brace himself on the window sill. “What are you looking at?” I ask in a stage whisper, half afraid that he’ll get us caught. Won’t Kelee be able to smell him, too?
“Just checking it out. I’ve never been inside the chambers before, and more info is always good.”
I blink at his form. “Huh?”
“Never mind.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
“We can’t. You know that if those files have disappeared, then they’ll start looking for you.”
“They are probably already looking for me. I’m assuming all it took was one call from the captain of the supply ship. My only hope is that they still think I’m asleep in my cabin, and they won’t check till morning.”
“So you just want to steal the files?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. Now either come with me or let me go.”
He sighs, jumps down from the planter, and does his thing. The filing cabinet disappears and I hear the window click closed again. “You locked it, right? It was locked.”
“Yes, Sherlock.” He grabs my hand and pulls me along the back of the building, keeping to the shadows. “Now come on, before we get caught.”
I jerk my hand away, but keep following. Now that I have actual incriminating evidence in my hand, I’m getting nervous. “I don’t need an escort, Jones. Just go.”
By the time we get back to Blakely’s, I’m shaking and jumping at every shadow. What if this file has a tracker spell or something like it? Angelo will immediately know where I’m hiding, and I’ll lose this gamble before I can even place a bet. I lead Jones back to my window, but a shadow there tells me there’s no need.
The shadow leans out. “Please come in through the front door, Trinket. Sneaking is tacky.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, then walk around. The front door is unlocked, and Jones is right on my heels.
Blakely meets us in the front hall, giving Jones a look. “Why is he here? Again?”
I shake my head. “He found me and he won’t go away.”
“I’m helping?” Jones asks.
“Not sure about that.” Blakely closes the door behind us and locks it. Turning to me, he says, “You should be sneakier. I knew the minute you left.”
“Sorry,” I say again. “I’m not good at...”
“Criminal activity?” Jones supplies. It’s my turn to glare at him.
“It’s not criminal.” I pause. “Well, it is, but I don’t care. Mom needs me.”
“Have you even considered the idea that she doesn’t?” Blakely asks over his shoulder as he leads me toward the same sitting room as before.
“Not really. Of course she needs help.”
“Maybe you don’t know your mother as well as you think you do.”
His suggestion irks me. “Maybe I do. I’ve known her a lot longer than you, Blakely.”
“True, true.” He pours each of us a cup of tea from a set on a small side table. “Here. This will help you relax.”
Jones gulps his down. I take mine, but set it down and then sit beside a lamp and flick it on. “Thank you.”
Opening Bilda’s file, I skim the first page. Our arrest and arrival in Jagged Grove are there in black and white, making me feel a little sick to my stomach. I flip to the next page, which seems to detail our mother-daughter relationship to an uncomfortable degree. Why would Angelo bother with that?
I start to turn that page over and realize that there is a second sheet stapled to it. This one is a note of some sort, in a language I can’t read, and the handwriting is different. I hand it to Blakely. “Can you tell me what this says?” I ask.
Only then do I realize that Jones is out cold, slumped on one of the leather sofas and sound asleep. I stare at him for a moment, then look at Blakely again.
Blakely smiles sheepishly. “He was starting to annoy me.”
“Did you kill him?” I watch Jones’s chest closely, relieved to see it rise and fall as it should.
“I wish,” Blakely mutters. “That man is more trouble than he’s worth sometimes.”
I tend to agree at times, but I say, “Be nice. He did help a lot tonight.”
Blakely shrugs and takes the sheets of stapled paper. “It’s in one of the rune l
anguages,” he says, glancing at me over the top before turning his attention back to it. “This could take a few minutes.”
“Why would it be written differently?” I ask. The thought makes my skin crawl, like Angelo somehow knows more about her than I do. Which is almost ridiculous, except that he already knows more than me about my whole family.
“It’s encrypted,” Blakely says. “I’ll need to go look up these symbols.”
“You can’t read it?”
He shakes his silvery head and strokes his goatee. “I can, but not without working on it for a bit. This is one of the ancient languages.”
He stands up and starts to leave the room. “I’ll be in my office,” he says over one shoulder. Then he stops and turns back to me. “You can drink the tea - that spell was only for Jones.”
“That makes me feel so much better,” I say to his back.
The next page in the stack is the arrest warrant. My hands start shaking again - this is the piece of paper I need. It should detail all of the evidence against Bilda and give me some clues about the real killer.
The warrant is a single page, and the first thing I see is Angelo’s huge loopy signature on the bottom. His ego is amazing. At the top I see the date - two days ago - and a list of Council members’ names. Then I see the list of witnesses and almost drop the paper.
Dravo is first on the list.
I keep reading, hoping that he testified on Bilda’s behalf. It doesn’t look like it, though. His official testimony says that he had no idea that she was even on the island until he was contacted by Angelo concerning her whereabouts.
Liar. According to Angelo himself, it was Dravo’s idea to bring us here in the first place.
Although Dravo has never actually said that, if memory serves. So who is lying? And how am I supposed to find out? The answer is obvious, though - since I can’t ask Angelo, I’ll ask Dravo.
First thing in the morning, if I can get there undetected. I bend my head back to the paperwork, but then movement catches my eye. Someone is outside the window.
It can’t be Angelo - he would just bust in and arrest me. But Jones and Blakely are here, and as far as I know, they’re the only ones who know I’m here besides the twins. I watch from the corner of my eye, trying to pretend I don’t see, and keep my head bent toward the file in my lap.
Evicted Witch (Jagged Grove Book 3) Page 9