"Thomas," Jason said. "He's going to think you're avoiding him."
"Maybe I should call him to see what he wants," Didi said, turning to me as if to ask if it was a good idea.
"Yes, call him," I said.
She looked on the fence, and I knew just what to do to push her over. "It would be rude not to."
Didi nodded and agreed to call. My sister could never handle being rude.
Ain’t No Mountain Low Enough
Didi joined me in The Cove, but had gone straight to her computer to check on the license plate we'd gotten. "The address to that vehicle is in Culver City."
"How did the phone call go with Thomas?" I asked.
"I left him a message. Should we swing by this address?"
"Can we pick up something to eat while we're out?" I said. "We haven't been shopping in ages, and I'm tired of eating sandwiches from the tea shop."
"There's got to be a way we can use magic to get our grocery shopping done."
"There was a way that we could have gotten them to waive those parking tickets," I said. "You stopped me from using the push to get that guy to just give us the car."
"That would've left all those unpaid parking tickets, anyway."
"It's not like you to let stuff like that slide."
Didi sighed. "I'm not perfect, you know."
"I don't mean it like that."
"I just got sad after the divorce and then life got so busy getting things back to normal," Didi said, shaking her head. "And now there's this whole thing with the new business and all the witch stuff and evil thing. It's all just too much to think about."
"I'm sorry, Deeds," I said.
"What do you have to be sorry about?"
"I should've asked you about this ages ago. I should've helped you."
"You had your own stuff going on. Can we talk about something else? This is bumming me out. And the tickets are paid off with the money we've gotten for this case."
"Didn't I do great asking for all that money? I figured she was rich, and she knows how much Mom charges."
"Yeah, that was great. I was really nervous about this whole private investigator thing, but with an exception to our car being towed, this case is going well. And we're making good money without even paying rent."
We both laughed, and a part of me worried that we got just a little bit too cocky. But I shrugged it off. If you can't let yourself enjoy the little moments of feeling successful, how could you expect to enjoy the big stuff?
We jumped into Didi's Toyota and headed for Culver City. It only took twenty minutes down Robertson. Thanks goodness it was well after seven.
We pulled up to a modest track-style home on a car-lined street.
"There's a bunch of restaurants up on Venice," Didi said. "Let's park, watch for a while, and then we can walk over there to eat if there's nothing to see. It'll give us an excuse to walk right out front on the sidewalk."
I nodded. I dig a plan that includes restaurants. It's not that I'm obsessed with food, it's that I've always figured if you've got to eat every day, you might as well look forward to it.
We sat in the car and stared at the house for a half hour. A real stakeout! And it was real boring.
"What exactly are we looking for?" I asked.
"Sometimes you don't know until you see it."
"So why do you think they got a ride from a rickety van? What happened to the Tesla?" I asked.
"I'm guessing it was one of their folks' cars. It's a shame it had dealer plates."
"That was a bad break," I said, pretending like I'd noticed the dealer plates. Thank goodness I was good at quoting high rates to celebrities, because my P.I. skills needed a little work.
"The lights are on in there, but I can't tell whether or not our little band of thieves is in there with the owner of the van."
"Weren't the tinted windows on that van super creepy?" I said.
"And illegal. You're not allowed to have windows that dark."
We sat and watched the house for a while, and then Didi spotted something down the street. "Let's go ahead and walk on the sidewalk to hit the restaurant."
"Are we really going to eat, or are we pretending to go to eat?"
"We'll eat," she said.
"Cool."
We crossed the street to walk on the sidewalk closest to the house we'd been monitoring. Didi leaned over and whispered to me, "See that woman walking her dog."
I gave a subtle nod yes. The woman was about thirty feet away from us on the sidewalk heading our way.
"Let's pace ourselves so we run into her right in front of the house. You strike up a conversation, and I'll kind of spy on the house from the sidewalk."
I nodded again. This was so cool! We sped up a little bit to get the timing right, but then the stupid dog needed to have a few moments to himself on the lawn so I bent down to tie my shoe to stall.
"I've been meaning try this Cuban place for a while now," Didi said, making conversation so we'd look natural.
"Yeah, it looks really good," I said. "I've passed by them a million times, and I've always wanted to try it too."
We got closer to the house, and the dog immediately began sniffing at a rock nearby. Perfect.
"Cute dog," I said, smiling at the woman and stopping to pretend to admire her pet.
"What's that supposed to mean?" the woman said, her surgically-enhanced lips pushed out with righteous condemnation.
Stunned, I said nothing, but must've had a confused look on my face.
"You're making fun of a rescue dog," the woman spat out.
Mayday! Mayday. Small talk plan going sideways. "I wasn't making fun of him. I was--"
"So you're telling me that 'cute dog' crack wasn't about his leg and his face," she said.
I looked a little more closely at the dog and noticed that the poor thing only had three legs and a scar right over his eye. He looked like one of those pets in those late-night commercials with that Sarah McLachlan song.
"I didn't see the whole," I stumbled for words, "leg face thing."
"Leg face thing?" the woman yelled, her voice shrill, but her botoxed brow remained unfurrowed.
I noticed Didi's attention was fixed on the house. An SUV pulled up to the driveway. Something was going down, and I was trapped in this fight.
"I mean, I noticed that," I said, stalling, "but what captured me about your dog was his..." I searched the dog for some kind of quality I could compliment him on. His fur was missing in places, and it looked like he had a few oozing sores on his back. "Spirit," I heard myself say.
The woman's expression changed, but it was difficult to read her mood with all of her plastic surgery. "I sensed his spirit the moment I saw him."
Okay, this was going in a weird, but less confrontational, direction. I decided to go with it. "There's something about him, and the way you are with him, that just transcends his outer condition."
"It's the crystals that I've been using with the healer. We've been doing extensive work."
I glanced over to the SUV, and the driver seemed to be absorbed by his phone. Need to keep talking. "It shows. It just exudes from the both of you."
The woman launched into an elaborate explanation of her crystal regimen that somehow wrapped into some sort of skincare line that she was creating, but I couldn't understand what she was saying, probably because it didn't make much sense, and also because I was distracted by our four goths exiting the house. After waving goodbye to someone I couldn't see, they jumped into the SUV in the driveway.
Judging by the way the kids hopped into the vehicle and the driver's demeanor, I figured it was a rideshare service picking them up. We needed to get going, but this woman would not stop talking, and it would look really weird if we just ran down the street and started following the van.
Darn it! We were going to lose them again!
"Oh my God!" Didi said, the urgency of her voice stopping the woman's diatribe. "You just reminded me I have an appointment to meet my c
rystal healer." Didi looked at her watch. "It took forever to get it and it's in 15 minutes."
"We've got to go," I said to the woman.
"I totally understand, I can see your energy all over the place. It's like nothing I've ever seen," she said.
Didi took off running to the car, and I followed her. My side hurt as I climbed into our car and fastened my seatbelt. It was half from the running and half from trying not to laugh.
"An urgent crystal healing appointment?" I joked to Didi once I was sure no one could hear us.
Didi pushed the key into the ignition. "It worked, didn't it?"
We tore down the street and turned right in the same direction as the SUV.
"I think that's them at the light," Didi said, changing lanes to get behind it.
"I think it is." I wished I could see into the back window.
"I hope it's them," Didi said as she looked around. "It's the only G-Class Mercedes SUV within eyeshot. Thank goodness we're not in Beverly Hills. There might be ten of these things at any light. We're going to follow it and hope for the best."
I found myself impressed with Didi's knowledge of cars.
The light turned green, and the SUV made a U-turn and so did we. "It's heading back toward Beverly Hills. That's a good sign."
"It is," Didi said. "Do you think I should pull up alongside them so we can take a look?"
"Yeah, you pull up, and I'll pretend to be talking to you and just kind of look over there."
Didi switched lanes, and for once, Los Angeles' un-synced traffic light system worked to our advantage. We found ourselves stopped at the next light right by the SUV.
"It's them," I said, smiling. "It's so them."
"All we have to do is follow them, and then we'll have an address to one of their houses," Didi said.
"We're really doing this," I said. "We're totally private eyeing it up."
Didi smiled. The light changed. We followed the SUV to Beverly Hills and watched as it pulled into a large private driveway.
A hand popped out of the backseat window to punch in the code for the large metal gates. We opted to keep going a little further down the street and turn around to refrain from being obvious.
The thing I hate about affluent neighborhoods in Los Angeles is that so many of them are housed on windy, mountainside streets. Even if I became a billionaire, I wouldn't want to live anywhere up in the mountains. It's so stressful to drive up here, and the small streets are claustrophobic.
"How is an ambulance supposed to get up here in a hurry?" I said as Didi pulled into a driveway so she could turn around. "If you go around one of these curves too fast, you'll plummet to your death. You'd think with all of the money they must pay in property taxes they'd have more durable railings."
"You always say stuff like that," Didi said.
"Stuff like what?"
"Why can't you enjoy the mountain drive and seeing the lights?"
"Because it's a thousand-foot drop off the edge over there. How can you get caught up in the lights when death is just over there?"
"It's like you're obsessed with death," Didi said.
"Well, he is my godfather," I said, never realizing the connection until now.
"At least we know why you're so morose."
"Maybe I should be a goth," I joked.
"You do like The Cure."
We waited and watched, and I wondered what kind of effect having Themis, a goddess, as a magical godmother had on Didi. I wasn't sure what it was, but I got the vibe she had the better deal.
I saw a pair of headlights in front of us. It was the SUV. But just as we were about to follow it, another vehicle exited from the private driveway.
"It's the Tesla from the security footage," Didi said.
I looked closer and noticed the parking sticker from the prep school and the dealer plates. Didi had it right.
"Do we follow the Tesla now? I asked.
"Yep," Didi said, pulling out into the road and following from a safe distance.
"I can't make out who's driving from back here," I said.
"Me neither. We'll take a closer look if we get a chance to pull up next to him."
The SUV turned off down the mountain, and the Tesla sped up and wound its way further up.
"I always get lost around these stupid mountains," I said, eyeing the edge.
"Whoever's driving is a freakin' maniac," Didi said, speeding up.
I opened my phone up to get to the App of Spells, looking for a protection spell. "Keep us safe," I muttered to myself.
"Seriously?" Didi asked.
"It can't hurt."
"You always criticize my driving."
"I'm not criticizing," I said. "I just don't want to die driving off the side of the mountain."
"I'm not going to drive us off the side of the darn mountain," Didi said.
I didn't believe her, but I thought it would be better not to distract my sister by arguing.
We continued to speed along the winding dark street, and I chanted in my mind the spell to keep us safe. I wished I'd thought ahead enough to bring my new wand. Was there a spell that I could use on this stupid Tesla to slow it down?
I searched through the App of Spells.
"I think we're almost in the Valley now," Didi said.
I looked up and noticed that we were on Laurel Canyon. The Tesla pulled over and parked on the street. Luckily, we were far enough behind them that we could pull over a few yards away.
Didi shut off the lights.
"Is this even a spot?" I asked, noticing there wasn't a curb.
"We're only here for a few minutes," Didi said, squinting to try and see what was going on. She was still annoyed with me.
"I wish we had binoculars or night vision goggles," I said, changing the subject.
"Hand me my purse."
I leaned into the backseat and grabbed my sister's gigantic purse and handed it to her.
"Do you have binoculars in there?" I asked.
"Not exactly," she said, rifling through her bag. "Keep watching. What are they doing?"
"They're teenagers sitting in a parked car. I don't want to venture to guess."
"I wish we knew who's in there." Didi pulled something out of her purse, but I couldn't make out what it was. "A-ha!"
It took me a moment to realize what she was fiddling with. "Are those opera glasses?"
"Yeah." Didi peered through them and attempted to spy on the car front of us.
"Why do you have opera glasses?"
"Rats! It's too dark. I can't see anything."
"This is stupid. We're magic," I said, opening the app on my phone and searching for the word spying.
"Reveal!" Didi said.
I looked up. "Did that do anything?"
"Dang it. I can't tell. I guess not."
The sound of a woman yelling caught both of our attention. We noticed it was coming from the house right across the street. The front porch light went on, and a woman that looked to be about our age stormed out of the front door and down the driveway. A man followed her.
"What's got into you?" he yelled after her.
She stopped and turned to him. "I just realized. You're cheating on me."
"Don't be ridiculous!" he said.
Didi and I traded looks.
"It dawned on me like a lightning bolt. All this time I thought I was doing something wrong. Like there was something wrong with me. But there's not. It's you. Sure, there are some places where I'm going to improve on myself. I can see that now. Like the part where I have such low self-esteem that I didn't notice I'd settled for a cheating jerk like you. But yeah, I'm going to be fine. And you get to be whatever you want." She headed to what I assumed was her car and looked in her purse for her keys.
"You're crazy, you know that?" he said.
The woman looked up from her purse to the man. "Everything's so clear."
Didi and I looked at each other.
The woman found her keys and put them in her ca
r door.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Get back in the house," he said, his voice taking on a pleading tone.
She shook her head. "I don't even know if you know you're doing it, but that doesn't matter. You need to make me feel less than so I'll stay with you. And you cheat because, in some ways, you're more insecure than I am. But that's for you to work on. I've got to work on me. It's so crazy. It's like this whole situation has been revealed. Good luck to you."
Then, she got in her car and drove down the mountain toward Ventura Boulevard.
"I guess it worked," I said.
The man stood on his driveway, stunned. He turned his head and looked at something. "You can quit staring now. Show's over," he yelled and then stormed into the house.
"Joy," Didi said, tapping me. She motioned in the direction of where the man was yelling.
Apparently, three of the goths--Damien, Scarlet, and the mystery guy-- had stepped out of the vehicle and had been staring at the driveway altercation.
"I think Damien's carrying the book," Didi said.
"Are you sure? What do we do?"
"It really looks like the book from the surveillance footage. It's about the right size, and it looks pretty heavy. But it's hard to tell from here," she said.
"Wait a minute. We're magic. I'll just go over there and get it using the push," I said.
"Can we do that?"
"Why not?"
"I don't know," Didi said.
Then, I noticed that Damien was starting to walk away. I couldn't let this opportunity slip by, and I jumped out of the car.
"Hey!" I said, jogging up to the threesome.
They looked at me like I was nuts.
As I got closer, I knew it was definitely the Book of Spells from the surveillance tape.
"You're going to give me that book," I said with a wave.
"No I'm not," Damien said.
It was weird that it didn't work, but I figured it was because I wasn't focused. I stood closer to him, looked him in the eye, and said it again, making sure to wave my hand like I always did.
"This is mine, you crazy--"
"Let's just go," Scarlet said, interrupting. "She's obviously got problems."
"You want to give me the book," I said, reaching for it.
"You want to get out of my face," Damien said, pushing me away.
Potions Eleven: A Paranormal Witch Cozy (Fair Witch Sisters Mysteries Book 2) Page 5