Witch of a Neighbor (Witch Reborn Book 6)

by Belinda White

  Because, for one thing, Patience Goodheart wasn’t an ugly witch by any means. And for another, she didn’t seem to have the temptations I had when it came to sweets. Or, if she did, one certainly couldn’t tell it.

  The woman could have been a model with that figure. I’d be asking her later how she kept certain parts of her so... perky.

  Maybe there was more than one good thing that was going to come out of this friendship.

  Chapter 18

  It wasn’t until after the coven meeting—a very successful coven meeting, I might add—and we were headed back down the path to the farmhouse that I remembered. I’d forgotten to leave any soup beans or cornbread for Orville.

  He wasn’t likely to be all that happy about that. Especially as I’d left our little kitchen smelling to the high heavens with all the good stuff. It was a very good thing that we had leftovers from our meeting.

  Orville would get his beans. They’d just be a little late coming. Hopefully, he’d be willing to forgive that last part.

  Lucky for me, he was.

  I shooed Nancy and Baby Pearl up to their respective beds and then hustled to correct my mistake. Orville, Goddess love him, never said a word of complaint.

  “How’d it go with Patience?” he asked.

  “It went well. I think this is going to be a very good thing going forward.”

  “Even if it breaks up your trinity?”

  Hm. I hadn’t really thought about that. But I gave a grudging nod. “Yes. I think so. A trinity is powerful, yes. But it isn’t like we are working magic up there, you know. We’re just there to receive the Goddess’s blessing, and to show her our support. I’m not sure that numbers count so much for that.”

  “Well, that’s good then.” He took the filled bowl from my hand and went to sit at the table. I followed and sat across from him.

  “What did you learn from Freddy?”

  He took a bite, then shook his head. “Not much. According to him, he knew nothing about the vase being sent to Kelly.”

  Another bite. I was impatient to hear more, and I suspected he was drawing out the conversation as payback for coming home to a bean-less kitchen. He’d tell me. He’d just make me wait a bit to hear.

  Come to think of it, that was probably just Karma coming back to bite me. Couldn’t really complain all that much about Karma, now could I?

  “I didn’t have much luck at the courier’s office, either. According to them, the packages were dropped into the overnight slot at their facility with a completed credit card payment form. Unfortunately, the credit card—and this is the part that took the longest to learn—was a prepaid one. The kind you can pick up at any store. No way to match it up to any particular person.”

  Well, that wasn’t very helpful. “And the form said it came from Morgan’s realty office?”

  “It did. But then, they could probably have put down that it came from God, and the couriers would still have delivered it. I mean, they’d already been paid, so what did they care?”

  He had a point. A worrisome point, but a point all the same.

  “Total dead end then?”

  Another thoughtful bite as Orville considered my question. “Maybe not. Tomorrow, I’d like to go through and make some calls on Morgan’s past clients. See if any more of them received packages from the agency. If nothing else, maybe we’ll get some of the burgled people’s stuff back if she made a habit of this kind of thing.”

  “That’s a silver lining in all this for sure. But why would Morgan do that? I mean, it’s risky enough stealing things from places that only a few people have keys to. But then turning around and sending the stolen goods out to other people as gifts from her company? Surely she had to know that would come back to bite her in the end.”

  He nodded. “You would think so, yes. That’s what is bothering me most about this whole thing. Maybe she thought sending Kelly an expensive vase would calm her down about the whole commission thing? It could just be a one-time deal kind of thing to keep her from carrying out her threat of trying to take legal action against the firm.”

  I grunted. “Don’t know what kind of legal action the woman thought she could take. She signed a bloody contract. It’s on her if she didn’t take the time to read it first.”

  “Granted. Still, we’ll know more after we do a few calls in the morning.”

  I BEAT ORVILLE OUT of bed for once. This one was really bothering me. Well, all murders bothered me, but this one especially. I liked Patience, and she needed closure to know what happened on her back doorstep. Closure would help her put it behind her and settle in a lot easier.

  And there was also the matter of Kelly Wilson. All these years, I hadn’t really liked the woman. Now? To be honest, I could never see the two of us becoming fast friends or anything, but the woman I saw yesterday was a lonely one. And a troubled one. I really think all she wanted in life was someone to love her. And now, with Cecil gone, she didn’t even have him.

  I just wish she’d come to realize that love didn’t come from a bottle or potion. It came from being brave enough to put yourself out there and talk to people. I had a bad feeling that kind of thing came hard for her. But for the life of me, I couldn’t come up with a way to help her over that.

  Much as I wanted to. Using magic simply wasn’t an option.

  As it was, by the time Orville came out from the bedroom to join me, I’d already made a good start on a list of people to visit. Two were right in the heart of Wind’s Crossing. Another still had a Wind’s Crossing address, but was out even further than we were, and in the opposite direction, too. And to top it off, there were two in Oak Hill.

  I had all the addresses written down and directions to the one that was out in the boonies. No sense getting lost, and sometimes that handy-dandy GPS thingie-ma-bob of Orvilles just sent us in circles.

  Better to be safe than sorry.

  It being Saturday, the others were just getting up as we were getting ready to head out. The shop had shortened hours on Saturday. That meant a little extra sleep-in time. Unfortunately, Baby Pearl only sleeps in for so long, even now. Still, eight o’clock was plenty late enough for a good sleep in, I thought.

  I don’t remember my Ruby being that kind to me when she was Baby Pearl’s age. They should take that as a win.

  “Josh Winters is a farmer, so chances are good he’s up and about by now,” Orville was saying as we reached the car. “I’d say start with him, then continue on to Oak Hill and round the day up in Wind’s Crossing as we head home. Sound okay to you?”

  I nodded. It was as good a plan as any.

  We found Josh out in the field, but lucky for us, he hadn’t yet started up the big tractor for the day. He saw us coming and climbed back down from the monstrous-looking mechanical beast and started toward us.

  “What can I do for you, sheriff?”

  Orville smiled at him. “Just plain old Orville now, Josh.” He glanced out over the field. “Looks like you'll have a good crop this year.”

  The man nodded, then tapped his forehead with his knuckles. “Knock wood. But God’s been good to us so far this year. It makes for a pleasant change every now and again.” Then he waited. After all, he had already asked his question. Orville hadn’t answered it yet, either.

  “You just bought this second parcel of land a couple of months ago, didn’t you? Through Morgan Truesdell’s agency?”

  Josh nodded. “That’s right. Paid a fair price for it too.” Then his eyes narrowed at us. “Things went just as they were supposed to, too. No way did I have any kind of grudge against Morgan, if that’s what you want to know.”

  Orville upped his smile. “Nope. Not even close. We heard that some of Morgan’s past clients had gotten gifts from her agency. We were wondering if you got one? And if you did, if we might see it?”

  He frowned at us for a good long minute, then slowly nodded. “As a matter of fact, I did.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a pocket watch on a chain. “Surprised the di
ckens out of me, too. It doesn’t look that cheap of a gift. From Morgan, I’d have more expected a fruit basket or something.” He paused. “With week-old fruit in it besides. The woman wasn’t known for her generosity, you know.”

  I glanced at the watch, then up to Orville. Yup. That watch was definitely on the list of stolen property.

  “And you say this came from Morgan?” I asked.

  He looked up to the sky, thinking. “Well, now that you mention it, the box actually said Morgan Truesdell and Associates, but I knew it was from Morgan herself, all the same.”

  “How did you know that?”

  Josh wrinkled his nose, then tapped it lightly. “The old sniffer. The box it came in fairly reeked of that cheap perfume Morgan was so fond of. I think she must have squirted half a bottle of the stuff into that box. My house still reeks of it. Even after I put the box in the trash out by the road.”

  Fifteen minutes later we left, with the watch firmly in a signed and dated evidence bag and the offending smelly box in Orville's trunk. Josh hadn't been kidding about the smell, either. He wasn't sad to see the box go, but the watch was a different story.

  I didn’t blame him. It was a nice watch. To make it up to him, I put in a call to the shop before we headed back out and had Kimberly put a hold on the pocket watch I’d just bought from the Anderson estate sale. I hadn’t paid all that much for it in the first place, and a farmer needed a good pocket watch.

  He was happier to see us go after that.

  Especially after I’d told him the watch would be a housewarming gift from Orville and me.

  Chapter 19

  Halfway to Oak Hill, I turned to Orville in the car. “You know what? I’m not sure I buy Morgan as our burglar anymore.”

  Orville nodded. “Good. I was beginning to think I was the only one having those thoughts.”

  “Nope. I mean, what person in their right mind would go around giving out gifts of stolen property? Especially when those gifts had a return address of their business and reeked of the perfume they wore? It just doesn’t make any kind of sense at all. Morgan Truesdell was not a stupid woman. She’d have known better.”

  “I have to agree. But where does that leave us?”

  That’s what I’d been thinking about for the past ten minutes. I always liked to have a working theory before opening my pie hole with something like this.

  “What if it was one of her realtor rivals? Someone trying to frame Morgan and close down her agency?”

  He waggled his head. “That’s actually a plausible theory. I’m sure sometimes keys change hands among realtors without a paper trail behind them, so it’s entirely possible the insurance company didn’t have all the facts on the case.”

  “Exactly.” I paused. “But the bigger question is, did Morgan find out about the set-up and is that what got her killed?”

  “That’s definitely the burning question right now, yes. Burglary is a serious charge, yes. But murder trumps burglary every single time.”

  He had the right of that, all right.

  “How many people are on that list of yours in Oak Hill?”

  “Two. Then another two right in the town limits of Wind’s Crossing. Of course, there are more, but I went with the most recent closings that Morgan was a realtor in.”

  I could tell the man was wavering. “You think maybe we should turn around and take a different track on this?”

  A few more seconds of deliberation. “No. I think it’s worth our time to visit with the two from Oak Hill. Besides, if they got gifts of stolen property, too, those will have to be handled.”

  “Agreed. But I’d say that after these two, we let Patty and her crew handle the rest. I mean, we’ve already made a case for it, haven’t we?”

  “Oh, yes. I’d say so.” He hesitated. “In fact, it might be worthwhile to call Patty right now and let her know what’s going on. She might just be able to handle the two Wind’s Crossing visits while we take care of the Oak Hill ones.”

  Sounded more than fair to me. I dialed her number and then put the phone on speaker. When she answered, I told her it was the two of us calling.

  “Good. I’d been thinking about calling you, actually.”

  “Oh? You have good news?” Orville asked.

  Patty chuckled. “If you’re asking whether or not I have the killer in one of my jail cells, then the answer is no. Beyond that, I’m not really sure the news qualifies as good or bad. It’s more of an explanation of things, I think. But you called me. So you go first.”

  Well, darn. I already knew our news. But Orville complied and told her about our new theory regarding the burglaries. Namely, that there was an excellent possibility that Morgan Truesdell had been framed.

  “Just great. More work. But I’ll go over personally and talk with them. If nothing else, we’ll be able to get those stolen items back to their rightful owners. That doesn’t happen all that often.”

  True. And it should make our insurance company client very happy, too. Less money going out their front door. Good for them and for us. Repeat business and all.

  I got the feeling that Patty was about to hang up. “Um, Patty. I’m still waiting for your news.”

  “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I learned something interesting last night. You know how Freddy Black is so dead set against you?”

  “Kind of hard to not know something like that what with all the effort he’s putting toward it.”

  “Yeah, well, turns out there is a reason for it. He’s Naomi Hill’s nephew. He just recently took his mom to see her sister in prison, and when he came back, well, let’s just say he doesn’t like witches anymore.”

  Crapsnackles. That wasn’t good news at all. Especially as it hadn’t been me that had almost killed Naomi when she’d attacked me. It had been Amethyst. With powers that we really didn’t want anyone knowing about. Even Patty.

  Eventually, we’d have to take the woman into our confidence, but the consequences of doing that and having her not see our side of things were simply too great to take that risk yet. We had to wait until she truly knew us and what we were all about first.

  We were getting there, but I didn’t think we’d arrived just yet. Not with Amethyst’s freedom on the line.

  But of course, all I could say at the moment was, “I see.”

  There was a pause on Patty’s end of the phone. “I’m glad. Hope it helps to know the reason behind his fear of you and all. The man must have a lot of bad Karma in his closet to be so very afraid.”

  My phone beeped at me. I had another call coming in. “Patty, I’ve got another call. Was there anything else urgent we needed to know?”

  “Nope, we’re good. You two take care now, you hear?”

  “You do the same.” Then I disconnected the call and answered the one trying to break through. I’d recognized it as Patience’s number, and I didn’t want to miss it. “Hey, Patience, how is the move going?”

  “There is a problem at my new house. I think you need to come over and tell me how to deal with it.” It was Patience’s voice, all right, but it didn’t sound normal.

  Unfortunately, before I could ask her what the problem was, the call disconnected. And when I immediately dialed back, she didn’t pick up.

  Orville looked over at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “That call was Patience. She said there was a problem at her new place and she needed me to help her deal with it.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “She didn’t say, and she hung up rather abruptly and now she’s not picking up.”

  Orville did a U-turn right there in the middle of the road, and then stepped on the gas.

  Yeah, I didn’t like much like the sound of that, either.

  Chapter 20

  Even with Orville’s lead foot, we were altogether too far away from Patience. But what did we really have to go on? Her voice hadn’t sounded all that distressed. Just... odd. Almost tinny. Maybe I was making too much out of it.

  Maybe he
r phone was going out? It was possible, right?

  Possible, but not probable.

  It was a good thing Orville was driving. One, because he could get us there in about half the time it would have taken me. But two, because something Patty had said had really gotten my brain going. It was racing down the track to the finish line.

  I had one hand holding to the oh-crap bar above my door. That was kind of a necessity, with Orville in speed demon mode. I just hoped the man remembered he didn’t have the bubblegum lights and siren to move people out of his way.

  With my free hand, I pulled out my phone. “Would it distract you if I made a call?”

  He shook his head but didn’t answer.

  “Benjamin Tate, Attorney at Law.”

  “Hello, Mr. Tate, this is Opal Ravenswind. We talked earlier this week about a business buy-out contract that Morgan Truesdell and Freddy Black had.”

  Orville spared me a quick, surprised glance, then had to correct his path. Hopefully, he’d be keeping his eyes on the road from here out.

  “I recall that, yes. What can I do for you?”

  “I was just wondering if there was any way out of that contract, legally. He’d said that she wanted an extension. It made me wonder if maybe there wasn’t one built into the contract itself.”

  “It's been a few years, so hold on. I'll have to pull the file.” He was back within a couple of minutes. “Here it is. And yes, there was. Either party could forcibly extend the contract for another five years as long as the company was making a substantial profit.”

  “And was it? Making that kind of profit?”

  His voice grew a little worried. “As a matter of fact, yes. It was. To be truthful, I’d forgotten that little loophole. Now I remember it was the only way Morgan would agree to sign it originally.”

  “Thank you.” I hung up and relayed the information to Orville.

  “Crap on toast. You know what this most likely means, don’t you?”