Chapter 86: Chapter Eighty-Six - The Not-So-Nice Note

“Nadine confessed,” Detective Palmer told me later that night on the phone. “If you back a suspect far enough into a corner, they tend to do that. Because of you, she was not only cornered but surrounded.”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me while rubbing Studmuffin’s velvet pizza tips. I was dressed to the nines as a sweatpants goblin while sitting on the window seat and serving as a throne to my snoring familiar. “Well, it was all thanks to my scary troll comb I threatened her with.”

The detective chuckled. He’d heard every crazy detail of the night already. “I think it was thanks to much more than that.”

“Did Nadine say why she stole forty-eight cat shifter Corvettes? Is she as big a fan of cat hair as I am?” I asked, plucking a few off my chin.

“No, she said she was going to renovate her uncle’s Corvette from parts of the ones she stole. Then she was going to sell the rest on the black market where she could’ve made a fortune.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of people doing that. Pretty much all you have to do is get rid of any identifying numbers on the car, and then boom. Fortune made on the black market.”

“Pretty much,” the detective agreed. “She’d planned the whole thing out on a piece of paper she’d tucked inside A Penchant for Dusty Corvettes Volume I before returning it to the library, which of course Isabella checked out in order to repair the book. When Nadine was cleaning behind the library front desk one evening, she figured out the passwords for the library checkout system to see who had volume I checked out. But every time Nadine went to Isabella’s house to get the book, Isabella was there, which hindered Nadine’s plans to get it. Nadine caused the bookmobile blowout, which was meant to stall Isabella from going home, but it actually stalled Nadine too. Her uncle’s Corvette died on the way, and she couldn’t find her broom.”

“Ah, karma.” I laughed, but then I remembered my job was to throne, not laugh. I stayed perfectly still so I wouldn’t get the hairy eyeball from Studmuffin. “Was it her who was hiding in the basement broom closet at the library when you touched the Eye Shadow amulet?”

“Yes. She was deliberating whether to shoot me or not while hiding the murder weapon.”

“Well, thank goodness she didn’t. And all of those Corvettes… Where did she put them? She has—had—a lot of stuff in her house, so I guess it’s possible I didn’t see forty-eight Corvettes there.”

“Her vanishing spell put them in an abandoned warehouse about five miles out of town. They’ll be returned to their owners soon enough,” he assured me.

I hoped when they were returned, there were no squealing tires around sharp corners, no random U-turns, or even a single honk. The cat shifter drivers better have their hands locked on their wheels at ten and two.

That would be one small step for safety, one giant leap for cat-kind.

“So who was it that called Garfield from the Belle’s Cove-vette Su-purr-ior Car Show about holding their meeting at the library if it wasn’t Mr. Seymour? Or did he change his mind after he was dead and call then?” Hey, stranger things could happen. I had a troll comb after all.

“No, that wasn’t Mr. Seymour who called at all,” the detective said with a warm laugh. “It was Nadine using Louise Leghorn’s phone after she killed Mr. Seymour.”

“Um, I heard the voice message,” I said, absently stroking Studmuffin’s soft back fur. “That was definitely a man speaking.”

“Apparently if a witch holds their wand up to their throat, they can either deepen their voice or sound like they’ve swallowed a helium balloon,” the detective explained. “That’s according to Nadine herself.”

“Oh. Handy trick. I did not know that.” It made me wonder what else witches could do with wands…and what other useful tidbits I didn’t know. One thing I’d learned lately about being a witch was that there was always more to learn. Lots more. How could I possibly figure it all out if I didn’t know what I didn’t know?

Ugh. Best not think too hard about that question this late at night. Okay, maybe even ever.

“I have to give Nadine credit for one thing,” I said, “because the locked-room mystery she staged was pretty genius. I never even thought to suspect her, the person who ‘found’ Mr. Seymour dead.”

“Right. This case wouldn’t have been solved so quickly without you, you know.”

“Nah, that’s not true. You would have done it if you hadn’t vacationed in the shadow library as a statue.”

“I’m not sure vacationed is the right word. It sure didn’t feel like one. I’m still recovering.”

“Well, last time I took a vacation, I had to recover from it. Let’s just say I’ll never drink tap water again outside my own home. It was like my vacation forced me to take a vacation from my vacation. It was a very confusing time, and I hated it.”

This was when my dad dragged me off to Nowheresville, Georgia, to celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday. Seriously, when someone tells you the water from their well is safe to drink, don’t automatically believe them.

The detective laughed again, the pleasant sound making me smile. “I’ll take your word for it, but…uh…speaking of vacations…”

“Yes?” This was new. Since when did Detective Palmer ever hesitate? He usually looked and talked so intensely, as though he were about to hurl a freight train right into my face.

“I, um, wondered if you would like to take a break from solving murders and fixing cars and have dinner with me sometime.”

Oh. Ohhhhh. So many thoughts crashed through my head at once. All of them competed in volume with my ringing heartbeat. He wanted to have dinner? With me? What would Travis say? Scratch that, what should I say?

The silence stretched, so I blurted out the first word I could think of to fill it: “Sure.”

It was just dinner. Travis could say whatever he wanted to. Still, though, my heart broke a little at the thought of him finding out. Which was silly because it was just dinner. But I had turned down every date Travis had ever asked me on. Was it because he was part of the Black family and it would be too hard to explain to Dad?

“Great,” Detective Palmer said, his smile loud and clear in his voice. “We can work out the details soon. Good night, Victoria.”

“Good night.”

After I hung up, Studmuffin cracked open one eye. “Mr. Shiny?”

“Yeah,” I said, stroking my familiar’s head.

“He’s extra shiny now.”

“If you say so,” I said with a sigh.

Travis sure wouldn’t be extra shiny about this. Would he ever speak to me again?

* * *

Belle’s Cove went another three days without a murder or anyone else’s house blowing up. Crazy, right? It was like some kind of record.

Detective Palmer and I had made plans for dinner Saturday night at a fancy-schmancy restaurant I’d never been to in town, exactly twenty-three and a half hours from now. Not that I was counting or anything. I was both nervous and excited for our date. Nerxcited, I suppose you could say. Still, though, I hadn’t heard a single word from Travis.

Friday evening at closing time, I strode up to Boxy. He whistled happily while he polished away some grubby fingerprints from the back windshield out of the goodness of his heart.

“Any top-secret ninja witch plans this weekend?” I asked him.

“Other than meet Isabella at the library?” He shook his head. “Not really.”

They were going to research Boxy’s Eye Shadow amulet to see if they could find it. Isabella was going to help him navigate The Smithsonian website since it had quite a few resources related to witchcraft.

I was really, really glad I’d kept my doubts about Isabella to myself. In the past week alone, with all of its ups and downs, Boxy and Isabella had grown a lot closer. She’d admitted to Boxy that her daughter had dropped out of law school due to stress. Isabella had helped prop her up again financially, which had put a little too much strain on her own finances, hence the pile of past due bills. Boxy had found Isabella’s missing Made You Read earring underneath the couch next to a roll of medical tape. I had no idea who the earring I’d found in Mr. Seymour’s office belonged to. Maybe it was Nadine’s.

“How about you?” Boxy asked, nudging me with his elbow. “Do you know what you’re wearing on your date with the detective yet?”

My shoulders drooped. “Not really. I guess I can’t just do this?” I gestured to my grease-stained Sunray’s shirt, plaid shorts, and black steel-toed boots.

Boxy shrugged. “I mean, I don’t make the rules. Wear what you want. The detective will be impressed with you no matter what. Besides, he’s got great taste.”

“You think so?” I asked, grinning.

“I know so,” he said, sweeping me into a side hug.

I hugged him right back, so thankful for him and especially his warmth. For the end of July in Georgia, it was oddly chilly. My breaths kept catching in the air, my goose bumps had goose bumps, and I wanted nothing more than to wrap myself up in a thick blanket and snuggle with my favorite familiar. Speaking of…

“Hey, have you seen Studmuffin around lately?” I asked. “It’s been awfully quiet this afternoon.”

“He’s probably whipping up a special cake for you just because. He might have even written something on it like No Regerts For Adopting You.”

I frowned, not quite following. “No Regerts?”

“I saw it on a cake once, not on one of Studmuffin’s obviously,” Boxy said, flipping his rag over the shoulder of his overalls and work shirt. “I think it was supposed to say No Regrets, but there was an unfortunate typo.”

I laughed and laughed as I so often did with Boxy. “Well, no regrets on your weekend. Have a good one.”

“You too. And tell me all about your regert-less date.” He hobbled toward the parking lot and waved over his shoulder with his non-cane hand. “Or at least the PG details.”

I snorted and shook my head, my belly starting to ache because of too much laughing. A hazard of the job, one I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.

After I flipped the closed sign on the front door, I turned and called for my little fluffer-stinker. “It’s weekend time. Do you know what that means?”

No answer.

While hugging myself for warmth, I made my way upstairs to my apartment. “It means belly rubs and kisses and waking me up at three a.m. with your vrooms, but it’s okay because it’s the weekend.”

My apartment was silent too. Hmmmm…

I searched in all of his favorite nap time places like the window seat and my bed. I even searched some of his not-so-favorite places, but there weren’t any of those.

“Studmuffin?”

My chest starting to tighten, I hurried downstairs again to the waiting area. There on the counter next to the mostly eaten tiramisu cake with delicate violet ruffles he’d made that morning lay a note. It was written in cut-out letters from magazines.

Already, I knew this couldn’t be good.

I waited for the letters to quit falling all over the page like snow and then read:

'If you want to see your familiar again, give me the ring. Meet behind Gas, Guzzles, & Go tomorrow at midnight. Tell no one.'

I gasped and then gasped again. My poor Studmuffin had been catnapped!