I managed to grab the bag as I turned to follow Meri down the corridor. Isobella skittered along the ground behind us. I didn’t dare turn and look, but she was gaining on us. I could hear the tips of her fingers and points of the shoes she was buried in scratching across the marble floor of the mausoleum.
“That thing you did in the basement, can you do it to her?”
“She’s not a demon,” he said. “Isobella is one of the most powerful witches to have ever lived. She’s far more dangerous than a low-level demon.”
“We have to do something. She’s moving really fast,” I called out between sucking breaths.
My heart sank as we reached the end of the mausoleum and there wasn’t a door. We’d gone deeper in, and it had trapped us even farther from what I’d thought was the only exit.
Meri pivoted to my left, and that’s when I saw the door that led out the back of the mausoleum. The door was chained shut from the inside, but Meri wiggled his nose and the chain fell away.
We burst through the door and into the fading light of the day. I pushed the doors closed behind us just as Isobella crashed into them, but she did not make it through. I heard her howl and then watched what I could see of her face through the stained glass in the door. She was trapped inside.
“It seems that even the Skeenbauers don’t want them getting out,” Meri said as we backed away from the door. “That shows you how dangerous even a dead witch can be. I told you this was stupid.”
“Let’s go home,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll be coming back here.”
Chapter Twenty
The evening came and went. Thorn and I had dinner together, but I’d had enough of Langoria’s case for the day. I didn’t bring it up, and neither did he.
We watched a couple of movies together, and I held tightly to his hand. I didn’t want him to leave, and I’d hoped that if it got late enough, he’d just crash on the sofa again.
What had happened with Isobella Skeenbauer had terrified me, but I didn’t want Thorn to know what I’d done. So I just kept holding his hand and wishing for him to stay.
When the second movie was almost over, Thorn got a call. His deputy that was on duty needed him for a traffic stop that had turned into drug bust.
“I have to go. Are you going to be okay? Have things been quiet around here?”
“Around here? Yes. No sightings of ghosts or people watching me through the windows since the last time.”
“Maybe you should go over to Annika’s house or something. I don’t like you staying here alone.”
“I’ll be okay. I’ve got Meri.”
“I’m coming back after I’m done helping the deputy. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said and kissed him. “I’ll try to wait up.”
“You don’t have to as long as you don’t mind waking up to let me in.”
“I don’t mind,” I said.
I thought about telling him that I’d get him a key soon, but that would probably open up a whole can of worms. He had to go. It just wasn’t the right time.
While I waited for him to come back, I made myself a cup of hot tea and then read on the sofa. A couple of hours later, I heard a car door followed by someone walking up the steps of the front porch.
Thinking it was Thorn, I got up to answer the door. I didn’t want him to think I was waiting by the door for him, so I decided to at least wait for the doorbell to ring before I opened the door.
“Brighton, step back,” Meri said from behind me. “Step back now.”
“What?” I asked, but somehow, I instinctively listened to his command and took a step back.
It was a good thing that I did because at least a couple dozen little tan scorpions came pouring under the gap between the door and the frame. When I saw them, my heart began to thunder.
I backed to the middle of the room as quickly as I could while Meri put himself between me and the tiny invaders. “What are we going to do?” I asked frantically.
“I’m going to zap them,” Meri said gleefully.
“What?”
“I’m going to zap the little buggers.”
As I was about to ask Meri to clarify, little bolts of lightening shot out of his whiskers and zapped the scorpions. Each one let out a little shriek and then sizzled out of existence. It took him under a minute to get rid of them all.
“That’s what I meant when I said I was going to zap them,” he said with a laugh. “That was kinda fun.”
“That might have been fun,” I said, “but the killer must know we’re close. Now they’re after me.”
After an hour of sitting on my sofa watching the door with terror and paranoia, I somehow managed to drift off to sleep. I must have exhausted myself by getting scared half out of my mind twice in the same day.
Eventually, Thorn returned and I let him in. But I was half asleep when I did it. So he crashed on the sofa and I drifted off to bed without even thinking to tell him about the scorpions.
When I got up in the morning, he was already gone again for work. He’d left a note that he had to meet with some federal officials about the drugs, and that he’d be nearly unreachable unless it was a real emergency. Since my life wasn’t in imminent danger right in that moment, I decided to wait until he was done with the feds to tell him about the scorpions.
Not wanting to stay at home or go work alone in the cemetery, I decided that day was as good as any to go down to the courthouse and find out about paying the back taxes and fines. I hadn’t had any mail or calls about the issue, and I was tired of waiting. The last thing I wanted to do was lose Hangman’s House because I wasn’t proactive.
Something told me to call my grandmother first. If nothing else, I wanted to know why they had let the taxes fall into arrears before I went to the courthouse to discuss it.
“Hello, Brighton,” she said cheerfully. “I wasn’t expecting a call from you for at least a couple more months.”
“I did say I would call more often.”
“That you did, but I have a feeling you’re calling about something today,” she said less cheerfully.
“You’re actually right,” I said. “I was hoping you could help me out with an issue related to the property taxes on Hangman’s House.”
“Issues with the taxes? What do you mean?”
“I mean that no one has paid them for years, and now the town council is threatening to get a lien for them and then foreclose to satisfy the lien,” I said.
“Well, that’s just absolute garbage, Brighton. Of course we paid the taxes. They would have no grounds to put a lien on the property. Do I need to call my lawyer?”
“No, not yet. Let me go down to the courthouse and ask for myself. I think I know what happened,” I said.
“Very good, dear. Well, call me back if you need my attorney.”
“I will, thanks, Grandma.”
After a few minutes of polite conversation, I let her go. I was furious with Langoria for lying to me, but I knew I should go down to the courthouse and check for sure.
The woman working in the tax office at the courthouse confirmed my suspicions. There were no back taxes due, and Langoria had just been trying to run me out of town.
The good news was that meant I got to keep the ten grand from the cemetery job. The bad news was that I ran into Maximillian on the way out of the tax office.
Literally.
I wasn’t looking up and plowed right into him. He was on his way in looking about as down as I’d ever seen a person look.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s all right. I wasn’t looking either,” he said glumly. “I don’t want to be here right now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again because I didn’t know what else to say, but Maximillian took it as a sign that I wanted to converse about his current plight.
“Drusilla, that’s my girlfriend, she made me get rid of the new truck. Said it was too extravagant. So I’m here to try and get the tax department to give me the local taxes
I paid on the sale back.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah, I doubt they will, but it’s worth a shot. I’ve done everything I can to make her happy, but it seems like since Langoria’s death, she’s become even harder to please. It makes no sense.”
But it made sense to me. What if Drusilla had killed Langoria out of jealousy, but it hadn’t made her feel any better? Perhaps she hadn’t known that Maximillian didn’t have to pay the alimony anymore, and she’d murdered his ex-wife prematurely.
“I don’t know how to ask this, so I’m just going to come out and say it. Do you know where Drusilla was when Langoria was killed?” I asked and then cringed waiting for his reply.
As I’d expected, Maximillian’s face grew red with anger. His breath became short, quick bursts. It was then I realized that if he was married to Langoria, he might be a witch too. There was a real chance I was about to be turned into a goat or incinerated in witch fire.
“She was at work,” he said curtly. “If you must know, she worked all day. She’s a groomer at Wizard of Paws grooming shop over near the school. One of the other groomers called in sick, so she was there for twelve hours with back-to-back clients.”
I didn’t have anything else to do since I still wasn’t comfortable going back into the cemetery alone, so I decided to check out Drusilla’s alibi. I figured that once I solved the murder, I could get the cemetery restoration done and finally finish earning the money. The other ghosts wouldn’t leave me alone, but maybe Langoria would stop trying to kill me.
I took my car over to Wizard of Paws and parked in the small lot next to a squat red brick building. The sign on the front of the building featured a shaggy white dog wearing a purple wizard hat. Someone was walking a dog in a patch of grass just beyond the parking area, and dogs were barking inside.
When I walked inside, the woman I knew as Drusilla was waiting for me in the lobby area. She had her hands on her hips and was loudly smacking a wad of pink bubble gum in her open mouth.
“My man told me you were probably coming here,” she said. “So you think I murdered that old witch.”
I wasn’t sure if Drusilla called Langoria a witch because she knew she was one, or if it was just her way of talking about Langoria’s personality without swearing at her workplace. I wasn’t going to ask her, and instead I made a mental note to ask Annika if Maximillian or Drusilla were witches.
“I was just following up on a hunch,” I said as casually as I could.
“Last I checked, you weren’t a cop. Just ‘cause your boyfriend is a cop doesn’t make you one,” she said and smacked her gum again. “But come here, I’ll show you my timecard on the computer. I don’t want you sending your cop boyfriend after me.” She brought up her timecard check-ins on the computer behind the front desk. “See right there, those are the hours I worked and right there,” “” she pointed at a radio button and some initials, “that’s where my manager approved the hours because I was here.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You need to learn not to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. Oh, and stay away from my man. I just got all his money back on my side. I don’t need you sniffing around.”
“Thanks again,” I said and left as quickly as I could.
After I left Wizard of Paws, I decided to go ask Annika if she wanted to have lunch. I figured she’d go if I offered to pay, and I could afford to pay since I got to keep all of the cemetery restoration money.
Despite the fact that I’d found a dead body after my first order of Hagrid’s Haystack, it still remained my favorite special at Dumbledore’s Diner. A huge stack of pancakes seemed like the perfect pick-me-up given how my day had gone so far.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into Annika’s shop was that there were no customers. It struck me as unusual because she got new items all of the time, so there was normally at least one person milling around looking at her fresh stock.
“Annika?” I called out. “I was hoping we could do lunch. Since you’re not busy, now seems like a good time.” Nothing. “I’ll buy.”
My breath hitched in my throat when that didn’t get a response. I figured she might just be in the store’s little restroom, so I checked there. It was empty. Next was the stock room in the back, but she wasn’t there either.
As far as I could tell, she wasn’t anywhere I the store, yet the front door had been left unlocked with the open sign turned out. My blood ran as cold as ice water when I checked behind the counter.
There I found a few drops of blood and some wilted flower petals.
Chapter Twenty-One
The first thing I did was call Thorn. “You have to go to Annika’s shop,” I said as soon as he answered. “She’s not there and I found blood and wilted flower petals on the floor behind the counter.”
“Where are you at?” he asked.
“I was at the shop. I’m going home to check something.”
“Stay put when you get there.”
“I will,” I said.
“Brighton, I mean it.” His voice was edged with warning.
“I know you do. Please believe me. I’ll stay there.”
I did mean it when I said it. It wasn’t like I planned to go anywhere else, but there was something I needed to check at home. My foot kept wanting to press the accelerator to the floor, but I was driving through town. I kept to just over the speed limit. Not that the town’s sheriff was anywhere around to pull me over.
After I parked the car in the driveway at home, I jumped out and raced to the gardening shed. The flowers were nothing more than brown, dried-up remnants of what they one were. I picked them up anyway and turned the shriveled bouquet over in my hands.
I dropped them on the ground and nearly screamed as a tiny brown baby scorpion crawled out from one of the shriveled flower heads. It had been hidden inside all along, and I’d probably put myself in danger every time I handled the bouquet.
Still, I couldn’t zap the baby scorpion. I couldn’t bring myself to stomp on it either. It was just a baby, I reasoned, and it wasn’t at fault. So I did the best thing I could think of.
I took a step back, waved my hands over it, and chanted the first thing that came to mind:
Little poison go away
Live to see another day
When you open up your eyes
Give this witch a big surprise
It probably wasn’t the best spell I could conjure, but it worked. Thick blue smoked poured off the little scorpion, and when it cleared, the little guy had transformed into a harmless field mouse. It squeaked at me and then darted out of the shed.
With the tiny scorpion dealt with, I had to figure out what the flowers meant. They’d probably been the murder weapon, but how? And who had used them?
I looked again and noticed that one of the flowers in the bunch had a tiny dried root at the bottom. They weren’t from a bouquet like you’d purchase at a flower shop. They’d been pulled from the ground, and they looked awfully familiar.
I had one more thing to check, but I told Thorn I wouldn’t leave home. I reasoned that where I was going wasn’t too far away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I called Thorn and told him I knew who did it. “I just need to confirm one more thing, and then you’ll meet me at the killer’s house?”
“Brighton, just go home and wait,” he said.
“No way. I’m going there,” I said.
“I don’t want you putting yourself in danger.”
“Annika is in danger, and I’m not going to let anything happen to her. I’m going there.”
“Wait for me outside,” he said. “Do not go in without me.”
“As long as you hurry,” I said and hung up before he could protest further.
I parked the car in front of the house and tried to wait. I really did. I chewed my fingernails to nubs in the two whole minutes I paced in front of the house, but my friend was in there. I w
as going in.
Thorn’s car rounded the corner and sped down the street as I climbed the front steps. He skidded up to the curb and jumped out.
“I told you to wait for me,” he said.
“I did.”
“Brighton. I’m going in. You stay out here.”
“I need to go in and help save her.”
“I’m not joking around with you. Stay here or I’m going to cuff you and put you in the cruiser.”
“Fine. Please hurry,” I said.
Thorn pounded on the door and announced “sheriff’s office” several times, but when no one answered, he kicked the door in. That probably wasn’t proper procedure given he was going off my information, but I figured if I was wrong about who killed Langoria and kidnapped Annika, I could just fix the door with a little magic.
All of a sudden, people began pouring out of their houses around us. It was a neighborhood full of mostly Skeenbauer witches, and I guessed they finally sensed that Annika was in danger.
Another car pulled up, and Amelda Skeenbauer got out. “Is she in there? Does that crazy old bat have my granddaughter?” she hissed at me.
“Yeah, I think she does,” I said.
“All right, sisters! Gather round!” Amelda called out and the witches all pushed closer to the house.
“Wait, Thorn is in there. He’s trying to help Annika.”
“No harm will come to him or my granddaughter,” Amelda said solemnly.
What she didn’t say was that no harm would come to Karen. The witches began chanting, and seconds later, an invisible force dragged Karen kicking and ranting through the front door.
Thorn came out behind her carrying Annika’s lifeless body in his arms. Her hair was stringy and limp, her skin a mottled blue-gray, and she just hung there like a rag doll. Tears streaked down Thorn’s face as he descended the steps behind Karen.
“I knew it!” Karen shrieked. “I knew you were all witches! I knew she was destroying my flowers with her vile magic. The Lord granted me the rod of judgment, and I will sit at his right hand for putting two of your kind down. I will be blessed in his Kingdom for doing his good works!” She was completely mad.
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