Cold Cases and Haunted Places

by Trixie Silvertale

“Are you kidding? Everyone knows where the Bryant firm is. They blast the address on the screen every time his ad plays on PV. It’s on the east side of town near the Werewolves’ Quarter.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Mallory sighed. “I guess I really am your tour guide today.”

  “You shouldn’t have made an offer if you didn’t want me to take you up on it.”

  “Whatever. Come on,” she said and headed north up Crescent Street toward its bustling intersection with Luna Street where the Town Hall stood. We hung a right on Luna and passed the MGPD, and I considered stopping in to ask Chief Berric Mueller about Adeline’s case, but based on our prior interactions, I decided against it. The stuffy werewolf never handed out any useful info without making me work for it.

  Several blocks later, we came to the towering office building of Channel 666 where they recorded Moon Grove’s biggest Paravision news show, Moon Grove Tonight. But still Mallory kept walking.

  “Are we almost there yet?” I asked.

  “Yup,” Mallory said and pointed at a neighboring, much smaller brick office building next to Channel 666’s. A modest sign staked into the soil in front of it featured a paw holding a gavel and the words “Paw and Order: Fighting for the Rights of the Fanged and Furry.”

  “Why would a warlock have any interest in being a lawyer for werewolves?” I wondered aloud.

  Mallory chuckled. “Because Chase isn’t a warlock; he’s a shifter. His entire family is.”

  “Okay, but I’m still confused. I thought shifters and werewolves weren’t fans of each other.”

  “They aren’t, but now and then their interests overlap. The law is one of those cases.”

  “Huh, okay. Well, let’s get this over with already,” I said and tucked the necklace back into my robes. I didn’t know whether Chase would recognize it, but the last thing I wanted was to put him on edge from the start of the conversation — assuming I could get any face-to-face time with him. If he was half as busy as Mallory made him sound, I wasn’t hopeful.

  “After you,” Mallory said and pulled the door open for me.

  “You won’t chicken out and disappear on me again, will you?”

  “A good witch never makes promises she knows she can’t keep,” Mallory answered with a wink. “Besides, you’re a reporter. You’re better at talking to people.”

  “Or at least we hope so,” I said and entered an underwhelming office. Maybe it was because they were spending so much money on advertisements, but their building had definitely fallen by the wayside. They didn’t even have proper offices. Instead, a large hand-me-down desk took up most of the space in the entrance, where a young brunette receptionist sat in an equally hand-me-down baby pink suit typing furiously on her laptop.

  She glanced up as I approached and raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “Hello. Did you have an appointment?”

  “No, but I wonder if I could steal just a few minutes to speak to Mr. Bryant? My name’s Zoe Clarke. I’m a reporter with the Moon Grove Messenger, and this is my colleague, Mallory,” I said, hoping it would spark a response. Lawyers loved free press.

  The receptionist gave me the once over. “I see. Can I ask what you’d like to speak to him about?”

  “The disappearance of Adeline Craft.”

  The receptionist’s face turned white as powder. “One moment, please,” she said and shoved back from her desk to disappear further into the building. I leaned to the side to watch her and caught sight of another desk in the far corner nestled between overstuffed, buckling bookcases. I couldn’t see his face, but judging from the expensive cufflinks on the sleeves that I could see, I figured I was looking at Chase Bryant.

  “Think he’ll go for it?” Mallory whispered.

  “Probably. Any lawyer worth his salt will know better than to turn away a reporter asking about a case like this.”

  “This way, Miss Clarke,” the receptionist called as she waved Mallory and I to Chase’s desk.

  We exchanged looks and I flashed Mallory a smile. “Told you,” I said and led the way. The receptionist produced a pair of folding chairs from behind a bookcase for Mallory and me, and Chase gestured for us to sit.

  “Forgive me for the poor conditions, ladies. We’re moving soon,” he said, his voice warm and inviting. He flashed a toothy smile as we took our seats and smoothed his gelled brown hair. The periwinkle dress shirt he wore made his sparkling, deep blue eyes pop — no wonder Adeline was head over heels for him; he was gorgeous, and perfect for PV.

  Chase nodded to his receptionist. “That’ll be all for now, Miss Adams,” he said, and she smiled and showed herself back to her desk. “So, what can I do for you, Miss Clarke? I understand you wanted to speak to me about Adeline?”

  Hesitation caught in my throat. Why was he being so gracious? If I were in his shoes and a reporter showed up at my office to ask me questions about my missing partner, I’d be sweating bullets — but Chase seemed as comfortable as could be.

  “That’s right. I got a tip off about some fresh evidence,” I said. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was close enough.

  “Oh? Well, that’s great news, but I’m surprised I haven’t heard until now.”

  Great news? Either he was an excellent liar — and he was a lawyer, so that was definitely a possibility — or he really had nothing at all to hide. Unfortunately for me, I had no idea how to figure out which was true. So, I went right for the jugular and pulled the necklace out from under my robes.

  Chase’s eyes locked on it and for the first time his face flashed an expression that didn’t scream confidence. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Depends. What do you think it is?”

  “The necklace the police found in Adeline’s room after she disappeared.”

  “That’s right,” I said, though I wasn’t surprised he’d guessed correctly. Based on what Tabitha and Mallory said about the popularity of the case, I didn’t doubt Chase had seen the necklace all over the news. The police would’ve questioned him about it too.

  “How did you get it? It’s been missing for years.”

  “It has?” I asked, confused.

  “Yeah. Once they finished with it, the police turned it over to Adeline’s family to remember her by, but someone stole it from them, or so they claim.”

  Well, that probably explained how it’d ended up in Odessa’s Oddities. Whoever had stolen it probably got a pretty penny out of Odessa for their trouble. But who in Lilith’s name could’ve sneaked into the Craft’s home to get it, and why would they do that? Could her parents have sold it because they couldn’t bear to look at it anymore and said someone had stolen it to cover up the sale? That made much more sense to me, but I couldn’t say for sure.

  “Someone interested in helping me understand what happened to Adeline passed it along,” I said, another half-truth. “Anyway, I’ve heard you gave this necklace to Adeline. Is that true?”

  Chase’s brows furrowed. “What? No, not at all. My family’s wealthy, but we could never have afforded to buy a piece of jewelry that expensive.”

  I didn’t know what to make of that. One or both of Tabitha and Chase were lying to me, and I didn’t know who to believe, so I kept pushing.

  “Not even as a generous gift to convince Adeline to change her mind?”

  Chase’s brows knitted closer together and he chewed his lower lip. “What? I really don’t know what you’re referring to here.”

  “A source told me that your relationship with Adeline had been rocky in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. She wanted to travel outside Moon Grove after graduating from Veilside, but you wanted to stay and work.”

  Chase chuckled. “Now it all makes sense. That ‘source’ was Tabitha, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t reveal my sources, Mr. Bryant. I’m sure you understand,” I said as confidently as I could, determined not to give Tabitha away.

  Chase’s smile broadened. “Right. Anyway, your source got it half correct. Adelin
e and I had been arguing about our future after she graduated and I finished law school, but I never bought her that necklace. If I could’ve, I would’ve, but like I said, my family’s pockets don’t run that deep.”

  “Then where do you think it came from?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but there’s only one other person in Adeline’s circle rich enough to have bought that piece, and that’s Tabitha,” he said, and I nearly fell out of my chair. What? Tabitha sold cauldrons in a nightmare retail job. How could she ever have made enough money to buy the necklace?

  Chase laughed again. “Don’t look so surprised! I know Tabitha’s fallen on hard times, but that wasn’t always the case for her. Her family owns the Brooms Bats and Beyond chain, and they’re filthy rich. Tabitha should’ve taken over the company, but after the scandal with Adeline and all the money her parents had to spend in legal fees defending Tabitha, that dream went up in smoke.”

  “Why would Tabitha want to spend that kind of money on something like this for Adeline though?”

  Chase shrugged. “Good question. Honestly, I always thought Tabitha was a bit, well, off. She had a thing for me, though she’d never admit it, but once I started dating Adeline instead, Tabitha got all possessive and jealous of her. I swear she bought the necklace to impress Adeline and try to win her back from me or something weird like that.”

  The more Chase told me about Tabitha, the more I believed she’d lied to me — about several things.

  Chase leaned forward and rested his steepled hands on the desk. “Look, I appreciate you pursuing this — trust me, no one wants to know what happened to Adeline more than I do; she was the love of my life and I still think about her every day — but I’ve already accepted that I’ll never know. I had to do it to move on with my life, as painful as it was.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “After thirteen years, something should’ve turned up by now. The cops did all they could. They talked to and cleared me — I was working late on a case and I was the one who reported her missing — and they talked to Tabitha, but she had just as solid of an alibi. If it wasn’t one of us, I don’t know who it could’ve been or what happened to Adeline.”

  “Sometimes it’s slow, but with enough time, truth usually finds its way to the surface.”

  “Not always. I think this is one of those cases. We’ll probably never know.”

  Mallory reached over to squeeze my leg and encourage me to leave sleeping shifters lie, but I didn’t agree, so I kept pushing. “I know you were the last one to speak to Adeline before she disappeared. Did you pick up on anything suspicious?”

  Chase smiled. “With tenacity like that, you’d make a brilliant lawyer. Anyway, no, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. We talked about our respective days and Adeline’s anxiety about her exam until she got home, then said she’d call me after the test was over. I never heard from her again.”

  So, whatever happened to Adeline, it must’ve happened in her own house. I reached for the charm hanging from my neck, growing more convinced of its involvement by the moment. I still couldn’t prove Tabitha had given the necklace to Adeline, but between her apparent lies and what Chase had told me about her misfortune, the doubt I felt continued to recede.

  If only the necklace would just say something again to clear it up for me. Why had it stopped speaking as soon as I took it from Odessa’s Oddities? Was something about me hindering it?

  On a whim, I reached around my neck to unfasten the clip and set the necklace on the desk. Chase reached for it before thinking twice.

  “It’s okay; you can touch it,” I said.

  Chase swallowed and picked it up to admire the black diamond in the center. “It’s gorgeous. I can tell from the way it looks on you it would’ve looked amazing on Adeline too; she had a similar complexion.”

  “Tabitha,” a voice whispered as Chase turned the charm over to run his thumb across the initials carved into the back, and I sat bolt upright in my chair. Chase and Mallory both looked at me like I’d gone crazy, but Mallory quickly realized what must’ve happened and her eyes widened.

  “Something wrong?” Chase asked.

  “No, nothing,” I lied, knowing better than to ask if he’d heard the voice too. Chase passed the necklace back to me and I quickly latched it in place around my neck. “Well, I think that’s all the questions I had for you, Mr. Bryant. I’m sorry to dredge all this up again.”

  “No need to apologize. It still hurts, but I’m always happy to talk about Adeline. I want people to remember her.”

  “From what I’ve heard, she sounds unforgettable.”

  Chase smiled and swiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “She was.”

  “Thank you. We’ll see ourselves out,” I said and stood quickly before he had the chance to object.

  “My pleasure.”

  Mallory seemed just as eager to leave as I was, so we thanked the receptionist on our way and hurried outside. As soon as the door closed behind us, I pulled off the necklace and thrust it into Mallory’s hands.

  “Hold on to this for me.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “When I let Chase check out the necklace, it spoke to me again. I think it can only do that if I’m not touching it. Contact with me must block the psychic connection or something, I’m not sure.”

  Mallory held the necklace out at arm’s length like it might lash out and kill her. “Maybe we should just ditch this thing and call it a day.”

  “No way. We’re almost there.”

  “We are? What did it say to you this time?”

  “Tabitha’s name,” I said, and Mallory turned pale.

  “Does that mean we’re going back to see her?” she asked as she tucked the necklace into one of the dozens of pockets in her robes carrying Lilith only knew what. The witch was like a walking Swiss army knife.

  “Sure does,” I said and stomped down the street toward Brooms Bats and Beyond.

  4

  Though we searched every aisle of Brooms Bats and Beyond, both together and separately, just to make sure we covered all the ground in the sprawling store, we couldn’t find Tabitha anywhere. Ironically, Mallory and I reconvened among the cauldrons where I’d spoken to Tabitha earlier in the afternoon.

  Mallory threw her arms in the air in defeat. “I didn’t see her anywhere. Could she be on break or something?”

  “Maybe. Let’s ask another employee,” I said and went off in search of one before Mallory could stop me. I couldn’t explain why, but a bad feeling swirled in my stomach about Tabitha’s disappearance; we had to find her before too much more time passed.

  As if on cue, a portly, short warlock in flowing black robes with silver hair and a nametag swished by, and I darted after him. “Excuse me, sir!”

  “Yes, dear?” the warlock asked as he stopped and spun to face me. “Is there something I can help you find?”

  “Actually, I’m looking for someone.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, see, I was here earlier today talking to an associate of yours named Tabitha about cauldrons and I, uh, I have some more questions I wanted to ask her. Is she available?”

  “I see. Well, I’m sorry, dear, but Tabitha’s gone home for the day. She wasn’t feeling well. But I’m sure I could answer any questions. I am the manager, after all,” the warlock said, but I could barely focus on anything he’d said after revealing Tabitha had left early.

  Our conversation about Adeline and the necklace might have shaken her up enough to make her want to call it quits early, but thanks to the dread growing and twisting in my stomach, I didn’t think so.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll just come back when she’s working. Thanks,” I said and whisked away before the manager could stop me. Without a word to Mallory about my plans, I breezed past her toward the door, hoping she’d get the hint to follow, though I didn’t stop to make sure until I was safely outside.

  Thankfully, Mallory was right behind m
e.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “That warlock I spoke to was the manager. He said Tabitha wasn’t feeling well and went home early.”

  “Well, she seemed pretty bothered by your conversation, so I guess I’m not all that surprised.”

  “I think it’s more than that. Do you still have her pulled up on the Parapages?”

  “I don’t, but I can look her up again.”

  “Good. Find her address. It’s time for an intervention,” I said and headed toward the Witches’ Quarter, assuming Tabitha lived there somewhere.

  “Looks like she lives on Crystal Street,” Mallory called over the sound of our boots click-clacking against the cobblestone streets. “Number twenty, so that’s pretty far down.”

  “Then let’s hustle,” I said, but Mallory grabbed me by the arm to stop me.

  “Or we could just, you know, use magic,” she said and pulled her wand from her robes with her free hand.

  “But I hate the way it feels—”

  “Evanesco!” Mallory interrupted with a spell, and the world around me turned into a blinding blur of color as my molecules separated and dashed across town before reassembling. We popped back into existence outside a small, unassuming brick home that didn’t look adequate for a witch from a wealthy family.

  A chill rippled over me as I tried to feel comfortable in my body again, and I shook my hands to get the tingling to stop. “You’re sure this is the right place?”

  Mallory shot me a sideways look. “The number twenty is on the door, so yeah, I’m sure. What now?”

  “We stop her,” I said and pounded on the door.

  “Zoe, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, if Tabitha really did something to Adeline, shouldn’t we, I dunno, bring some reinforcements or something?” Mallory asked, but I never had time to answer because the door swung open to reveal Tabitha’s face. Her expression rocketed from panicked to angry and settled on cool indifference.

  “What are you doing here?” she hissed. “I thought I told you not to tie me back up in all this.”

  “You did, but I agreed to that with incomplete information. You mind if we come in?” I asked and tried to force my way through the door, but Tabitha swung it hard until only a crack large enough to show one of her eyes remained.