“Sorry,” I called after him as I started to run toward the house again.
His only reply was another long honk.
Back at home, I was itching to solve Langoria’s murder. I paced back and forth across the living room as Meri watched. I hadn’t even changed out of my wet clothes.
What I needed was an idea of how I could get more information. I had a lead, but I had to figure out how to use it.
Then it hit me.
“I’ll break into Langoria’s house. I bet there are clues there,” I said as I stopped my pacing.
“That’s a terrible idea,” Meri countered.
“No, it isn’t,” I said and restarted walking from one side of the room to the other. “I’m sure there is a ton of information in her place. I just have to get in there and find it.”
“You’re going to end up on the wrong side of the Skeenbauer witches if you do that,” Meri said. “Or, you know, her ghost is going to show up at her house and clock you.”
“Not if I take a Skeenbauer with me, and we don’t get caught.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“No, I’m not. I’ll just wait until tonight to go. I’ll get Annika to go. She will want to solve another mystery, and you can go too. You can help protect us. That’s what you’re here for, right?”
“This is a terrible idea,” Meri said.
“Is that a yes?”
“Whatever,” he said.
“Whatever,” I responded.
“Normally, I’d say that was a terrible idea,” Annika said when I called her.
“Normally?”
“Well, tonight is Langoria’s funeral,” she said. “The whole town will probably be there, including Thorn, and no one will question it that you’re not there.”
“I’ve seen her ghost twice now, Annika. That storm a little while ago, that was her.”
“Yeah, that make sense. It did come from out of nowhere. But she’ll probably be at her funeral too. That’s just the kind of witch she was.”
“That means you can’t go with me.”
“You’d think that,” Annika said. “But as long as I make an appearance and Granny sees me, I can slip out after. There will be so many people there, no one would be able to keep track of me anyway.”
“Won’t you have to sit with your family?”
“More than half of this town is my family. I promise, they won’t be able to keep track of me. Wait at home, and I’ll come get you as soon as I can slip out.”
“Will you have a car?”
“I’ll borrow Remy’s. He won’t even notice, and I’ll have it back before the funeral is over,” she said.
That evening, I waited for Annika’s call. She texted instead.
Just made my escape. On my way. Be ready to go.
So I got ready and waited for her on the front porch. Sure enough, five minutes later, she pulled up in front of my house in Remy’s car.
Remy wasn’t with her, so I could only assume that she’d really borrowed, or stolen, it. When Annika pulled up to the house, she slammed on the brakes and slid a little, kicking up some dust and small rocks. I watched as she leaned over, threw the passenger door open, and yelled:
“Get in witch! We gotta go.”
I crossed the lawn quickly and jumped into the car. “Were you followed or something?” I asked as she stomped on the gas and we peeled out.
“Nope. I’m just bored and I thought I’d try and make this as exciting as possible. But we do need to hurry. I didn’t tell Remy that I was borrowing his car or what we were doing.”
“You didn’t think breaking and entering was exciting enough?”
“Who has to break in? I have a key,” Annika said.
“Well, that will make things much easier.”
“I didn’t say that,” Annika said as she pulled the car to a stop along the curb of a tree-lined street. “We still have to get through her protection spells. Getting through a dead witch’s spells is not easy.”
“I can help with that,” Meri said and climbed out of my bag.
“Is this her street?” I asked.
Annika began to get out of the car. “Nope, she lived three streets over. But we can’t just park in front of her house. It’s too obvious.”
“All right, let’s get going then.”
“Just remember, a dead witch’s spells are nothing to mess with. Be careful. I doubt anything would hurt me since I’m a Skeenbauer, but you and Meri are prime targets.”
Suddenly, I started to feel like breaking into Langoria’s house was a bad idea even if we had a key. But we’d already come so far. Meri hadn’t told me to stop again, so either he’d given up on warning me away from danger or he thought we’d be okay.
We walked quickly to our destination, and snuck up the gravel alley behind Langoria’s house. Though it did seem that, at least while we were on the outside, we were being overly cautious. Everyone was at Langoria’s funeral. It was like a ghost town in her neighborhood.
“Okay, here goes nothing.” Annika reached for the back gate. “Oh,” she exclaimed when it opened with ease.
“There’s no magic?” I asked.
“Doesn’t appear to be,” she said and walked through.
I followed and nothing stopped me. “This is too easy.”
“Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, okay?” she said and we proceeded as fast as we could to the back door of the house.
Annika knelt down and retrieved a key from under a flowerpot. She put the key in the lock and opened the back door before replacing it under the pot.
“I thought you said you had a key?” I whispered.
“Well, I meant I knew where one was, and I was right,” she said and walked in.
Again, we met with no wards or other protection magic. “It shouldn’t be this easy to get in,” I said but followed her anyway.
“Maybe it’s because nobody in their right mind would break into Langoria Skeenbauer’s house,” Meri offered. “Even if you survived her magic, you’d have the whole Skeenbauer Coven after you. That’s probably enough to keep people with half a brain cell left away.”
“He’s right,” I said. “This is probably a trap.”
“Well, if it is, the trap’s not going to spring while I’m with you. Let’s just do what we came here to do, and then get the heck out. What are we looking for?”
“I wanted to see if she has anything about her alimony from her ex-husband,” I said.
“Oooohhh. You think Maximillian might have killed her over the alimony payments?” Annika asked.
“It’s my working theory right now. I overheard him and his new wife…”
“Girlfriend,” Annika corrected. “Much, much younger girlfriend.”
“I heard them arguing at Nailed It. She was mad because she didn’t think he’d done enough while Langoria was alive to stop the alimony payments.”
“Well, she’d probably have stuff like that in her office. Follow me.”
She led me through the mudroom we’d come into, through the kitchen, and down the hallway to an office with a huge window that overlooked the back yard. A large black desk stood in the center of the room. One of the things that struck me was that there was no computer on it, but I thought that perhaps she had a laptop stashed somewhere.
It didn’t matter, there was a stack of papers on top of her desk under a cauldron-shaped paperweight. They were on the top, right-hand corner of the desk. There was a handwritten letter and a bunch of legal papers.
The letter was from Maximillian, and it threatened to find a way to cut Langoria off from the alimony “legally or otherwise.” He must have been furious when he wrote it because the handwriting was shaky, and it was a pretty stupid thing to put down on paper. Perhaps it was because he didn’t think she’d end up dead? But he had threatened her openly and in writing. That was brazen, and it told me that he had a temper. Maximillian had a temper, a motive, and a younger, impatient girlfriend egging him
on.
Next in the stack were the court filings where Maximillian was trying to prove that he should no longer be responsible for Langoria financially. Below that was an order from the court dismissing his case. He’d lost, and if Langoria had lived, he’d have had to keep paying her alimony for who knows how long.
A crash sounded from downstairs, and Annika screamed. I almost tripped over Meri as I tried to run to her. He’d been right by my feet, and in the cat way of doing things, he nearly killed me as I tried to exit the room.
I righted myself and rushed down the stairs. What I found nearly put me on my butt with shock. Langoria’s spirit was there, and she was hurling items at Annika. Annika had her hands in front of her, and she ducked and dodged as best she could.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked. “She’s your niece.”
With that, Langoria’s ghost turned her attention to me. She began to hurl even larger objects at me. It became obvious that the shots she took at Annika were warnings, but me she intended to maim horribly.
I dove to the floor as a heavy metal sphere left a shelf and nearly struck me in the head. If it had, it probably would have killed me. As it was, I only suffered skinned elbows and a knock on the chin.
As I stood up, I caught a glimpse out the front window. Thorn’s cruiser had pulled into the driveway.
“Thorn’s coming,” I said. “He’s getting out of the car.”
When I turned around, Langoria’s ghost was gone. Annika had scooped Meri up into her arms.
“Let’s go,” she said, and we hurried toward the back door.
Unfortunately, when we reached it, the door would not budge. The knob wouldn’t turn, but the one on the front door was not stuck. I heard it turning as Thorn came into the house.
“Do something,” I said in a panic.
Meri jumped down from Annika’s arms and swished his tail as he wiggled his nose. Thankfully, the knob turned, and the door opened.
We all spilled out onto the back porch and ran down the short stairs. As we fled across the yard, Langoria’s specter began to appear. Meri hissed at it, and we kept moving. I closed the gate behind me and threw a glance back at the house. Thorn’s face appeared in the back door’s window, but I could only hope that he didn’t see me.
Chapter Nine
We made it back to the car and jumped inside. Annika peeled away from the curb and drove back to Hangman’s House. I stayed in Annika’s car and we talked for a few minutes in my driveway.
“Don’t you need to get back?” I asked.
“I can spare a little time,” she said. “Plus, I need a moment to breathe.”
“That was pretty freaky,” I said.
“Yeah, totally. I had no idea she’d attack me that way. I thought for sure I was safe because I was family.”
“I don’t know that family meant as much to Langoria,” I mused.
“What do you mean?”
I’d been thinking about how she’d given up Remy, but I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone he knew. I didn’t know if Annika knew either.
“Nothing. She just didn’t have a problem trying to hurt you is all,” I said, without looking at her.
“You’re lying,” Annika said. “Why are you lying to me?”
She sounded genuinely hurt, and I’d put myself in a bad position. I’d promised Remy, but I hated lying to Annika too.
“I can’t talk about it. I promised I wouldn’t.”
“You promised someone in my family that you wouldn’t talk about Langoria?” She was really good at putting things together. “Who? Remy?”
“I promised,” was all I could say.
I didn’t have to say anything. Annika figured it out from the look on my face.
“You promised Remy you wouldn’t talk about Langoria…” She trailed off for a moment, but eventually, I could see the gears turning in her brain. “I’d always thought those rumors were complete BS.”
“What rumors?” I hoped it was something else.
“They tried to keep it from us, but you can’t keep a lid on a story like that. The older generation probably used some kind of magic to protect the secret, which is why the younger cousins never really questioned it or talked about it,” she said and turned to me. “Langoria was Remy’s mother. That dreadful witch really did just give him away because she didn’t want to be burdened.”
“He doesn’t want people to know that he knows.”
“I need to go to the funeral and be with him. I’m sure this is weird and hard on him,” she said. “I wish you could go too, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to show up at a Skeenbauer funeral.”
“You’ll tell him I wish I could be there.”
“I will, but I think he already knows that,” she said as I got out of the car.
As I watched Annika pull away from my house, I felt awful. I hadn’t meant to let Remy’s secret out. It’s not like I’d just outright told Annika, and I’d tried to keep my promise. But it was still my carelessness that led to her figuring it out.
I went inside and made myself a cup of tea. Meri had been asleep in my bag when I’d come into the house, so I’d just set it down and let him sleep. Halfway through my cup of tea, he shimmied out of the bag with something in his mouth.
Meri had the protection amulet Langoria had stolen. He’d found it in her house and had kept it to himself.
“Why didn’t you tell me you found that?” I asked. “We could have given it to Thorn. He would have had to believe me.”
“You wanted to wait inside the house where we were trespassing and hand over a piece of evidence that only proves you had motive to kill her?”
“You could have left it there so he could find it. At least then, he’d have believed me that she was the one who broke in and stole it,” I huffed.
“Thus ensuring that he had evidence that you had motive to kill her,” Meri said with a flick of his tail.
“Whatever.”
“Whatever.”
An hour or so later someone rang my doorbell. I’d thought that perhaps it was Annika returning after the funeral to visit or maybe Remy coming over to hang out, but it was Thorn. I thought I was busted. I just knew that he’d seen me fleeing Langoria’s house and he was there to arrest me and probably break up with me too. Could he break up with me? It’s not like we were a real couple. Breaking things off was still possible, though.
“Can I come in?” he asked after I opened the front door.
I stepped back and motioned for him to come in. Thorn stepped past me and took off his hat. He was wearing a ball cap with the sheriff’s office insignia on it instead of what I called his cowboy hat. For a moment, I wondered how he made the decision each day about which one to wear. My mind did not want to focus on the possible negative reasons for his visit.
“Please sit down,” I said. “Do you want a tea or some soda?”
“A beer would be nice, if you have one.”
“Let me check,” I said.
I didn’t have any beer on hand, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any in the fridge when I opened it. The house had a way of providing things after all, but it wasn’t something I could control.
Sure enough, when I opened the refrigerator, there was a six-pack of pale ale inside. I took two out and went back to the living room to join Thorn.
“Thank you,” he said.
Thorn used one of his keys to open the bottle, and he reached out for mine. I handed it to him, and he did the same for me.
“Thank you,” I said and sat down next to him on the sofa. “I guess this means you’re not here to arrest me,” I said.
“For what?” he asked and narrowed his eyes.
I almost choked on my sip of beer. He wasn’t there to arrest me, and I’d just made myself look guilty of something for no reason.
“Oh, I’m just kidding. I guess it’s too soon for that.”
The side of his mouth curled up and Thorn’s eyes narrowed further as he contemplated what I said
. After a minute of silence, he relaxed and took a big swig of his beer.
“I got a call about Langoria’s house tonight. One of her elderly relatives was too sick to attend the funeral. She heard a ruckus in the house and called my office. Said she might have seen a prowler sneaking in too. I still had a key from when we went in after she died, so I checked it out.”
“Oh, did you find anything?” I asked as innocently as possible.
“No.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said and took a gulp of my beer. “So did you come over just to hang out and drink beer after work?”
“No,” he said. “I mean, I hope you don’t mind. I probably should have called first.”
“I don’t mind at all. Do you want me to fix something to eat?”
“Brighton, I can’t just show up at your house and expect beer and a meal,” he said sheepishly.
“Of course you can. Let’s go into the kitchen. I’ll whip us up something.”
We moved into the kitchen, and at Thorn’s request, I made us more grilled cheese sandwiches. Apparently, he’d really liked them.
“I can pay you back for this,” he said as I set his plate down in front of him.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I actually came over here to ask you out tomorrow night. I thought you might let me take you to dinner. I promise I didn’t come here expecting you to cook for me, but I was hungry after my shift.”
“Really, Thorn, it’s no trouble. I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it, and yes, I’d love to go to dinner with you tomorrow night. Thank you for asking.”
We ate our sandwiches and made small talk for a while. When we were done eating, I cleared our plates from the kitchen table and took them to the sink.
Thorn was standing right behind me when I turned around, and he tipped my chin up and pressed his lips against mine. His arms wrapped around my waist just as his radio went off again.
“This keeps happening.” It almost sounded like a growl.
“You have to go?”
Doom and Broom Page 6