Granny laughed. “I don’t pretend to know everything. But your parents were exceptionally powerful people, each in their own way.”
To her surprise, Thea felt a lump rising in her throat. She dropped into a nearby chair and leaned closer to her grandmother.
“Tell me about them?” she asked.
She was so accustomed to hearing little about her parents, to the careful grieving silence she had been raised in. Only recently, since discovering that their fates were unknown, had Thea started to ask about them, to become greedy to hear whatever she could about them.
Granny smiled gently, reaching out and settling a hand over Thea’s before squeezing lightly.
“Your father had a magical connection with nature,” Granny said. “It was a marvel to see that boy commune with the elements. He could sit out in the woods for hours and hours, and all the while his magic was just ebbing and flowing with the wind and the earth and the water. It was as if the very trees loved him.”
“And Mom?”
Granny’s smile turned sad, and her voice bubbled faintly with withheld tears, but she answered Thea’s question.
“Selena never met an object she couldn’t shape. Even as a little girl she was turning her toy tea sets into real silver plates. She could even change the form of different creatures. That’s advanced magic, too, but she did it as easy as breathing.”
“Changing the shape of creatures....” Thea repeated, musing.
Granny nodded. “I know, I’ve thought of it, too. When Alistair first went to live with those wolves, it did occur to me that he might have been trying to learn that kind of magic in some attempt to feel close to Selena.”
“And is it possible? For a human to transform into an animal form, if they don’t have shifter blood?”
Granny shrugged. “Who knows? If Alistair ever did it, I never learned of it. It would be a strange thing to keep to himself.”
Thea took all of that in. She couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that rose in her at the thought of her father, living among the wolf shifter clan, intentionally pushing up against the boundaries of knowable magic.
That was the kind of thing that could definitely make enemies. And hadn’t Aunt Tiegen said he had stirred up trouble among the clans for it?
Was it possible that all of this had something to do with her father? Were the tensions that had resulted in Tony Lopez’s death the same ones that Alistair had kicked up with his insatiable curiosity?
Chapter 19
The next day, while Thea, Sybil, and Jesse were alone in the shop, Max Lopez dropped in.
Thea certainly wasn’t expecting to see him again, not after their tense and awkward encounter the day before. He had a strangely mixed expression on his face, halfway between stormy and sheepish, and he made a beeline for Thea as soon as he saw her.
“Is there someplace private we can talk?” he asked.
Considering how angry he’d been when he took off the day before, Thea worried for a moment whether it was wise to be alone with a volatile young shifter—and one who was potentially a murderer, at that.
But she couldn’t pass up the chance to get to talk with him again. She still had so many questions about the case, and it was clear Max knew more than he’d let on so far.
“Sure,” she answered Max in a low voice. “Back through that door, okay?” She pointed to the door that led into the shop’s office.
Max bobbed his head in a quick, sharp nod and, shoulders squared, made his way quickly to the back. The door shut with a heavy snap behind him.
When Thea glanced around the shop, she saw Jesse was eyeing her with concern.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Can you hold down the fort for a few minutes?”
“Of course,” Jesse answered, though he didn’t look too wild about the prospect of Thea meeting with Max alone.
Luckily, Thea wasn’t planning on meeting him alone. As she walked toward the office door, she signaled to Sybil to follow. Without hesitation, Sybil sprang up and trotted along in Thea’s wake.
“Better keep those shield spells at the ready,” Sybil muttered in an undertone just before they reached the door and passed through it together.
Max was pacing restlessly when they reached him, running his hands again and again through his hair and letting out long, huffing sighs. He only stopped once the door was shut and the three of them were alone together.
“Nobody’s listening in, right?” he asked, clearly anxious.
Thea shook her head. “Just the three of us.”
Max cut a suspicious look at Sybil. As a shifter, he almost certainly knew she was Thea’s familiar. But, to Thea’s surprise, he didn’t ask her to leave.
“Those things you said about Mira and me yesterday...” he opened, awkward and clearly irritated. At first, Thea worried he was about to stage another clumsy denial, but instead he sighed and seemed to go slack. “How did you know?”
Thea cleared her throat. She didn’t want to admit to spying.
“Well, you know, I am best friends with Mira’s sister,” she bluffed.
“Pippa didn’t know,” Max insisted. “Nobody knew. Mira wouldn’t have told.”
Thea raised her eyebrows and said nothing, hoping to wait him out until he talked.
Max let out a low, irritated growling sound. She thought she saw him puffing up a little, as though his frame were growing in size, the way an animal does in the wild to make itself more intimidating.
She imagined this move must normally have worked in getting Max whatever he wanted. Thea felt Sybil press against her heels, and in her mind she was mentally preparing to put up a shielding spell, grateful for the practice the night before which meant the incantation sprang easily to mind.
Thea wasn’t sure what a wolf shifter would do if he found out he’d been spied on by magical means. All she knew was she wanted away from this subject, and fast. She crossed her arms and gave Max a stubborn stare.
“What were Mira and Tony doing together that night?” she pressed.
At this question, Max visibly deflated. He sank into the nearest chair and hung his head in his hands.
“I don’t know,” he said, and all the tension was gone from his voice. “I’ve been wondering that myself. I just... I wish I knew, I really do.”
Thea and Sybil exchanged looks. Was this genuine, or an attempt to get Thea to let her guard down? Sybil gave Thea a be careful flick of her whiskers.
Still, Thea decided to chance it. She pulled up a chair near Max and leaned in closer to him.
“It must be stressful for you, not knowing,” Thea hazarded, going for empathy.
Max nodded. “I told Tony. About me and Mira, you know? That we were having trouble because we didn’t want the clans finding out, but still she wanted me to be able to be honest with the people in my life.”
“I thought you said you two were both careful with the secret.”
“Careful to a point,” Max said. “Never quite as careful as I wanted, though. I think that’s one of the differences between wolves and foxes, you know? I’m part of this... this tightly knit clan, always aware of my role in the community and what my duty is. But Mira’s a fox. She’s got more of an independent streak than that.”
“Meaning?”
Max shrugged. “Meaning she didn’t always seem to be on the same page as me about how bad it might get if someone found out about us.” He cut a look at Thea. “Particularly if it’s true that you heard about us through Pippa.”
Thea grimaced, feeling guilty over the fib.
“Well, if that’s the case,” she hedged, “then Mira’s sure learned her lesson. It’s totally impossible to get any information out of her now.”
And if it was true that Mira wouldn’t even tell Max what she had been doing with Tony, then she really had become a tough nut to crack.
But was it possible to find out what had happened that night without hearing Mira’s side of the story?
Chapter 20
Aft
er Max left, Thea took a moment to calm herself in the back room.
“I thought it was going to come to blows there for a second,” Sybil remarked, hopping up onto Thea’s lap and purring in obvious relief.
“Yeah, me too,” Thea confessed. “I’m not sure I can hold my own against an angry shifter yet, you know? And honestly I’m not too eager to give it a try.”
Still, she had never felt more grateful for the work she’d done with Aunt Tiegen and Sybil in developing her magical defenses. It had felt good knowing she was not entirely defenseless, even alone with an angry murder suspect.
Jesse popped back into the office, an expression of concern on his face.
“What was that about?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
“Fine, fine,” Thea answered. “He didn’t hurt me.”
“He looked seriously angry.”
“I think he’s more angry about circumstances than about anything I’ve done specifically,” Thea said, hoping that was true but only half-believing it herself. “Anyway, I am poking around into his brother’s death. Either he’s involved in the death and has something to hide, or he isn’t involved and is genuinely in mourning. In any case, he’s bound to think I’m being a nosy pest.”
“I’m sure we’ll all feel a lot safer once this case is neatly solved and packed away,” Sybil said, voice edgy. Thinking about wolf shifters seemed to make her uncomfortable.
“Along those lines,” Jesse prompted, “what’s the next step?”
Thea hesitated. She knew what the next step had to be, but she was reluctant to admit it. Still, even if the prospect frightened her, she knew she would need to talk to the foxes if she wanted to get any kind of perspective on what had happened to Tony.
“Would you mind watching the shop again, Jesse?” Thea stood, giving Sybil time to spring down from her lap. “I think I’m going to start with a quick stop by the bookstore.”
PIPPA WAS ON SHIFT at A Novel Idea. She looked up as Thea walked in, but she didn’t wave her over eagerly like usual. As a matter of fact, Pippa looked incredibly tense and awkward.
Thea gave her a minute, pausing by the children’s section where Captain, the fat bookstore cat, was curled up on a small, kid-sized chair.
He purred greedily as she cooed over him, without once opening his eyes. He was a favorite amongst all the bookstore’s regulars, and he didn’t seem to mind or care who was petting him, so long as someone was.
Only when Captain had evidently fallen back asleep did Thea straighten and make her way over to where Pippa stood at the counter.
“Hey,” Pippa greeted, clearly nervous. “I take it you aren’t here to pick up a book, huh?”
“Sorry,” Thea said. “I was planning to go talk to your clan a little more, and I wanted to know what you knew first. And maybe if you wanted to come with me.”
Pippa sighed and shook her head. “Listen, I know you’re good at this, Thea, I really do know it. And you know how supportive I am.”
“But?”
“But,” Pippa echoed, “you’re barking up the wrong tree here. The foxes are innocent. And it would be one thing if everything was just, you know... neutral. But the truth is that you asking around like you are... well, it’s been really scaring Mira. And she’s scared enough already, considering the police seem like they’re out to get her.”
“Mira could just come clean,” Thea said. “The reason she seems so suspicious to both the police and me is that she’s so tight-lipped about what happened. If she just opened up about her connection to Tony, about what happened that night, I’m sure we’d be able to establish her alibi and move on to figuring out who was really responsible.”
Of course, Thea hadn’t fully absolved Mira of responsibility herself. But she was hardly going to win Pippa over by owning up to that now. It would be best to seem like she was only looking into Mira in hopes of clearing her name.
“Mira shouldn’t have to come clean about anything. Because she has nothing to do with it,” Pippa said, exasperated. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“What makes you so sure?” Thea pressed. “That Mira and the rest of your family are innocent, I mean?”
Pippa crossed her arms and frowned deeply. “They’re my family, Thea. I know them pretty well by now. I’d be able to tell if anyone was lying or hiding anything.”
Impatient with Pippa’s attitude, Thea didn’t stop to think about her next words. “Then I guess you’d know that Mira has been hiding a relationship from you?”
Pippa’s eyes widened. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Mira and Max is who I’m talking about,” Thea insisted. “They’re an item. If you really knew your family so well, then you’d be completely aware of that, wouldn’t you?”
Pippa didn’t seem to take it in. She only shook her head stubbornly and glowered at Thea.
“You know, Ada said this would happen.”
“Said what would happen?”
Pippa scoffed. “During the clan meeting, she told us that the foxes need to stick together through this,” Pippa said. “That we were going to have to keep an eye out for outsiders poking their noses in. I just didn’t think you’d be the person making this so much more difficult.”
“And I’m an outsider now?” Thea asked, hurt. “You were the one who was so upset about Mira’s involvement in this that you came asking for my help.”
Pippa’s angry expression wavered for an instant, but she didn’t relent. When she spoke again, her voice was steely.
“I came to you because I trusted you to understand that my family has nothing to do with this,” she said. “Now, if you’re not a customer, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Chapter 21
Although the tiny voice in the back of her mind was telling her that this probably wasn’t the best choice, Thea pushed those thoughts away. She needed to find the truth. While the other fox shifters were unwilling to cooperate, Pippa included, she knew that their leader would.
Her past visit to Ada’s home was still fresh enough to evoke goosebumps up the sides of her arm when she recalled the woman and her ice cold nature. Even though Pippa wasn’t with her this time around, Thea felt a new-found sense of confidence as she parked her car in front of the fox elder’s home.
“Here goes nothing,” she muttered, steeling herself.
An odd eeriness encapsulated her as she made her way up to the front porch of the house. The day was humid and foggy, the sun masked by heavy layers of clouds. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Something told her that she wasn’t welcome in this neighborhood.
Then again, she figured that she was just being paranoid. Her mind was just playing their tricks on her. Still, her hand somewhat hesitated as she knocked on Ada’s door and waited for her to answer.
Eventually, she did. Ada looked her up and down with a blank expression as she leaned on her cane.
“You again?” she asked with a smug raise of a brow. “Didn’t think you’d have the nerve to show your face around here after last time.”
Swallowing down the knot in her throat, Thea almost agreed. She raised her chin up a little higher, refusing to let Ada see any signs of weakness.
“I don’t have anything against you. I’m just trying to find out the truth about what happened that night,” Thea said.
Before Ada had the chance to retort, Thea continued on. The woman was already shaking her head incredulously, amazed but also frustrated that Thea continued to pester her about this case. Her lips pursed together as she held back her cutthroat words.
“I know that you don’t like the wolf shifters, and if we’re being honest, they don’t like you that much either.”
“Isn’t that surprising?” Ada responded, followed by a wispy laugh. “Do you really expect me to like those shifters after everything that happened? And it doesn’t matter what they think about me. At the end of the day, it means nothing.”
Thea crossed her arms over her
chest. “Did you do it? Did you attack Tony Lopez that night?”
Ada’s nostrils flared once she mentioned the boy again. At this point, Thea was surprised that she didn’t spit on the ground and storm away like she did the last time.
Instead, she shifted her weight to distribute it solely on the one that wasn’t damaged. Then, she motioned to her limp leg.
“Do you really think that I’m capable of fighting off some wolf shifters like this?” Ada asked, tapping it. “If I had the ability to fight off a wolf by myself, I wouldn’t be in this situation then. Don’t you think?”
“I guess you’re right,” Thea replied, eyes flicking from her leg back to her face. “I hope you understand why I keep coming back to this. I’m just trying to help out with the case.”
“Yes? That’s very noble of you,” Ada said. “And I hope you understand why I’m more unimpressed with those wolf shifters every passing day. They’re convinced that Mira Paulson had something to do with this case and we fear retaliation if justice isn’t served to whoever killed that boy.”
“Retaliation?” Thea repeated, heart almost stopping in her chest.
“That’s what we assume,” Ada confirmed. “Of course, we hope that’s not the case, but we don’t have high expectations for those wolves anyways. If they do something to that girl, we won’t hesitate to fight back.”
The gravity of the situation was finally hitting Thea in full force. Tensions between the wolf shifters and the fox shifters were escalating at a rate that no one could have anticipated.
Thea knew that they were going to have to find out who the true murderer was quickly. Otherwise, a lot of innocents were going to suffer the consequences of someone else’s actions.
“I hope it doesn’t get to that,” Thea responded softly, meeting Ada’s stony gaze directly. “I’ll do everything I can to help find out who killed Tony. I promise.”
“Good for you,” Ada said. “I wish you good luck in finding the killer soon. That boy’s death has caused us a world of trouble. Who knew that even in death the wolf shifters could be so bothersome?”
Adventure Magic (Tabby Kitten Mystery Book 3) Page 7