Bait & Switch (Driftwood Mystery Book 1)
Page 22
The box that I was never supposed to open.
Robert had tried to tell me something in his final moments. He’d asked me to look after Nick, almost like he knew his end was near. I couldn’t let it go.
I was becoming as superstitious as my new coworkers.
I had to find out everything there was to know about Samson Grift, bribe-taking handler. I needed to know why Robert had confused him with my father, and if Grift had anything to do with his framing and imprisonment.
I cast a long glance out the door and toward the front office as Marge came out of the back, arms laden with case files.
She followed my gaze, frowning.
“Is Charlene okay?” I asked.
Bailey had fallen under suspicion when he didn’t return to work after his leave ended. His front door was found open, and a bloody knife was sitting out on the kitchen table. It was later confirmed to be the blade that had cut Travis Gregory’s throat.
Bailey still hadn’t been found.
And because of all that, I couldn’t have Charlene knowing I had asked for his address right before his disappearance. It raised too many questions. Even knowing that I had already hit Charlene with one too many memory spells, I had no choice.
Marge nodded sadly. “She’s clucking like a chicken.”
I shook my head. “That is not funny.”
“She’s fine.” Marge rolled her eyes and smiled. “Chatting everyone up about the trip to Yellowstone that she’s planning. And I’ve been busy, because the tuba man is back again, this time featuring a fetish for strings. Don’t touch the viola back there, you don’t know where it’s been. I’m serious. Have you read that yet?”
I followed her pointing finger to a sticky note placed on my keyboard. A case number. “No.”
Marge set her stack of folders on her desk before casually checking out the door. She took her seat.
“You remember that old case I mentioned? No? Whatever. Anyway, I was right. There was a murder like this, about twenty years ago. The killer was never found.”
I cocked my head. Surely this hunter cell hadn’t been going unnoticed for that long. “And you think hunters did it?”
“No,” Marge frowned. “The victims were Elizabeth and Jonathan Gosling. Bailey Gosling’s parents.”
My blood turned to ice. If I hadn’t purged on a few of Nick’s cursed oddities that morning, I probably would have been running to the sink. “What?”
“They were found stabbed to death by their back door. Eighteen wounds on each victim.”
Eighteen and eighteen, plus the slit throat. Thirty-seven.
Marge pulled a file from her stack and handed it to me. “All kinds of weird ritualistic shit found around them, too. Bailey’s parents were murdered by someone like... well, like you.”
I stared in dismay at the list. Silver bowls, a cat’s head, black candles, and stale bread. A circle drawn in blood. Stab wounds in threes and nines—three threes made nine. Nine and nine was eighteen, wherein the eight and the one made nine. Three nines made of threes.
Three was a sacred number to them. It was definitive in their work.
Sawdust, thread, and scraps of fabric.
“Did they recover a doll?”
“Because this needed to be even creepier.” Marge hissed under her breath. “No. Why would there be a doll?”
My heart sank. Whoever had done this, he had completed the ritual. “It’s a servant enchantment. Warlocks use it to make a golem-like creature, kind of like a familiar but darker and more mechanized, out of the broken souls of lovers, and sometimes families. They use them to kill their enemies. Fetch their supplies. Do laundry. You know, whatever they don’t feel like doing themselves.”
I picked up the garbage can and handed it to Marge. She had gone five shades of green.
“They make dolls that kill people?”
I continued to push the garbage can at her, but she didn’t take it from me.
“Fuck this. I’m out. Charlene me.”
I sighed. “They’re only good for about a decade, and that’s with light use. This one is already long gone. But poor Bailey. He might have witnessed this—”
“He did,” Marge said. She took the garbage can. “No one believed him when he said a wizard and a...” she looked green again. “A kid. He said kid, but it was probably the... doll. No one believed him. They thought some crazy cult did it. It was all over the news and everything, but it was never solved.”
“Some crazy cult did do it,” I said. “They’re known as Mockers. But this explains a lot about why he grew up to be what he was. Why he felt the need to stab a dead man with his own athame.”
Marge nodded, sadness hanging in her eyes. “Yeah.”
The silence stood between us as we both mourned the little boy who had died that day, giving birth to the man who had painted Travis Gregory—a loving husband and father—with the same brush as a murderous lunatic. There was no getting over something like that. I could hardly blame him for his hatred even as I hated him for everything he’d become.
I had to say something before the depression swallowed me whole. I nodded at the case files Marge had in front of her.
“What are those? Audit?”
Marge laid a hand on them. “Supernatural.”
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against my chair. “Marge.”
“You’re a supernatural cop. This is what you do. I’m reporting some crimes. Fifty-two of them, to be exact.”
“Marge.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re a conspiracy theorist.”
“Oh no,” she said, her voice going up in pitch. “I am a seeker of truth, and I cannot make this shit up.” She started setting the files in front of me, one at a time. “Ghost siting. Invisible dog. Wolfman. Wolfman. Wolfman. Ghost burglarly. Banshee. Bigfoot—”
“Marge.” I sighed as I started going through them. After a night of drinking and explanations, she had proven to be pretty cool with the whole ‘I’m a witch’ thing, but who were we kidding? She was still Marge. “Witness forgot his glasses. Barking stray, probably a small breed. Great Dane, standing on its hind legs. Fox wandering outside someone’s window. Guy in a Halloween mask.”
Marge scoffed. “Are you going to take the cop’s word on every single one of these?”
I picked up the next case. The so-called ghost burglary. And when I flipped it open, a tingle ran straight into my palms.
“When did this happen?” I flipped to the front of the file, and my heart skipped a beat. I flipped to the back. This bank was less than ten blocks from my apartment. “This happened three days ago. The cops didn’t follow up on this? A bank robbery?”
“The perp returned everything except fifty bucks and the contents of a single deposit box,” Marge shrugged. “Plus, the owner is that wacko who does all his commercials dressed like Frankenstein’s monster. He’s claiming this woman walked through the vault wall to steal everything. Cops wrote it off as a stunt after he said everything had been returned. Well, everything except the fifty and one box.” Her eyes gleamed. “But I believe him. I’m right, right? She a ghost?”
“No such thing,” I said quickly. That wasn’t entirely the truth, but Marge was already spooked by assassin dolls. I didn’t need to drop poltergeists on her the same day. “But yeah, she totally walked through the wall and into the vault.”
And, even better, I already knew the suspect’s name. Our paths had crossed, and at one point, the law could have mistaken us for the same person. A member of a great team of criminals. Involved with Alex Mordley, one of the most dangerous men on the planet.
Millie Corm. Alex’s ex was in town.
She was a great cat burglar. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t weird that she was robbing a bank, but she hadn’t been an active thief since Alex left her for me. Maybe it was a coincidence that she chose now, right after I was back on the Bleak’s radar, to start up again.
But it couldn’t be a coincide
nce that we both ended up in the same area.
Was she back with Alex? Sounded like something he would do. Arranging for me to see her here, and know the ax was hanging over my head... Classic Alex. He loved playing with his prey.
Was she here to kill me? Was he here to kill me?
My brow knit in confusion. I need to call Nick. I stood up and started to dial my cell.
“Beech is going to be pissed,” Marge said in a sing-song voice.
I looked to her in dismay.
“Which is why you should go out the back,” she winked. “And don’t forget to bring a caffeinated bribe back with you.”
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About the Author
I GREW UP IN BROOMFIELD, Colorado, reading and creating art. (But mostly reading.) I am a second generation trekkie, a fan of obscure anime and most science fiction and fantasy on television today, and I have dressed up to attend the conventions. I proudly have a time turner and a tribble sitting next to the VHS copies of Star Wars on my shelf at home—still seeking a sonic screwdriver to add to the mix.
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