To Scratch a Witch, page 12
AJ tried the door, but it was locked. She knocked loudly, saying, “Elliot? It’s me. AJ.”
After a few moments Elliot opened the door. He looked more weasel-like than mousey that evening. Though maybe that was wrong too, and he just had a rodent furtiveness around him.
As AJ walked past him, she thought she caught a whiff of something acrid, like sulfur but set further down in her throat.
Her mind immediately went back to that gunshot she’d heard when doing her reading.
Was that gun powder she was smelling? Had Elliot been shooting a gun that afternoon? There was a gun range in town. She wasn’t sure how easy or difficult it was to get a membership. She seemed to recall there was a waiting list for using it.
Maybe Phoebe had had a membership and he’d just helped himself to it.
Books loomed on the shelves in the main room, the bookcases tilting slightly toward each other. A stiff breeze and they’d both be buried in books. The smell of the mold made AJ crinkle her noise to hold back a sneeze. She didn’t want to step beyond the entranceway, feeling claustrophobic just by the sight of the place.
“How are you?” AJ asked Elliot as she motioned him to lead the way to Phoebe’s office.
“Holding up,” Elliot said.
It was a perfectly appropriate thing for the son of the murdered woman to say, even if they hadn’t been close.
AJ couldn’t help but feel that it was a lie. Elliot wasn’t holding up, wasn’t in mourning for his mother.
No, she’d judge that he was feeling both afraid as well as anxious. Not even eager, not that night.
Something else was bothering him, far beyond the search they were about to conduct.
AJ wished suddenly that she’d brought her big purse, with the water bottle in it. Not that she necessarily could use that water for anything impressive. Still, she noted where the bathroom was, in case she needed to make a run for it and get herself to a ready supply of water.
Phoebe’s office was at the back of the building, behind the staging area for the shop. Tattered boxes were piled up beside a work counter, a label machine lying mournfully alone in the center of it. At least it didn’t reek so much of old books back here. Maybe because the floor was polished concrete instead of the indoor-outdoor carpet stuffed under the bookcases out front.
Elliot fiddled with keys, trying a couple before opening up the door to the office. It swung outward.
He opened the door wide and gestured for AJ to go inside.
Was this it? Was this the site of her vision?
AJ took a deep breath, released it, then, with her head high, walked into the dim space.
Here went nothing.
Chapter Eighteen
AJ stepped into a room that she’d never seen before.
Except, there were echoes of that other room in here. The bookcases all along the walls. This time, AJ noticed that they were full of antique books with worn leather spines, nothing fresh or new. A couple of large filing cases held court in the corner, the locks busted and their contents rifled through.
There wasn’t anything special about the desk itself. It looked like a modern computer desk, with a cheap laminate top and drawers on the sides. A small rug sat underneath the desk, where someone would place their feet. A fancy office chair lounged on the other side of the desk, modern black mesh that didn’t fit the décor of the rest of the room, which was definitely garage-sale eclectic. Probably the chair was also used.
AJ took her time walking around the desk, then peering underneath it. She even went so far as to touch the carpet.
Eww. Sand covered her palm.
But she didn’t get the sense of a space hidden there.
“I’m sorry,” AJ said as she stood up. “This isn’t the place I saw in my vision.”
Elliot stood there with his hands in his jacket pocket. “All right,” he said slowly, nodding. “Didn’t think this would be. But we had to check, make certain, you know?”
“I do,” AJ said, nodding.
“Let’s go to her house, then,” Elliot said. He turned to go.
AJ paused for a moment, looking at the books behind the desk. She didn’t think there was anything hidden there among them. They weren’t calling to her, glowing, or giving off any sort of magical clue.
Phoebe had surrounded herself with books, everywhere she went. They were her life. Both as a bookseller and a bookkeeper.
Books also held the mystery of her death. AJ was certain of it.
Elliot had probably already looked at all of these books. They had the feeling of being disheveled, as if someone had taken every single book off the shelf, flipped through it, then slammed it back in place, disgusted and not being careful.
AJ turned to look back at Elliot, waiting impatiently for her at the door. He’d gone through this room. He must have great faith in her, if he thought she might be able to help him locate Phoebe’s safe.
Elliot didn’t bother locking the office door when they left. Maybe he’d only kept it locked because he thought there might be something valuable in there.
After they exited the building, AJ asked, “I know that Phoebe wasn’t from here. Where did you grow up?”
Elliot gave her a wry grin. “Portland. And other places.” He nodded. “That big bookstore in Portland? What’s the one, that takes up a couple of blocks downtown?”
“Powell’s,” AJ supplied. She wasn’t a big bookstore person herself, but everyone had heard of Powell’s books.
“Yeah, that’s the one. Phoebe got her start in the bookselling business there. When I was a kid,” he added hastily.
AJ just shook her head. He was lying again, though not about all of it. That was the problem with Elliot. He appeared to mix lies with truth all the time, easily sliding from one to the other.
“Had you been to your mother’s house before?” AJ said.
“Visited regularly,” Elliot said.
That was…the truth, actually.
So Elliot had had some contact with his mother. Strange that no one in town seemed to know that she’d had a son.
They drove up to Phoebe’s house. It was up on one of the hills surrounding the town, like most of the houses. However, it was closer to the center of town, in a small, rundown neighborhood. Even though it was night, the streetlights were enough to show more than one house with cars up on blocks in the front yards, weeds taking over what remained. There was even a burned out hulk of a house, stark, scraggly timbers pointing toward the sky like skeletal fingers.
This hadn’t been the type of neighborhood that AJ had expected at all. Phoebe was supposedly better off than the rest of them, doing so well with her business.
Or had the neighborhood fallen down around her, and she’d just never moved away to someplace better?
The neighborhood ended in a cul-de-sac, which didn’t surprise AJ. That appeared to be the most popular method of building the neighborhoods above Milltown, running a street until the construction workers ran into a densely wooded area, or yet another creek, then capping the street off.
Except that Elliot didn’t pull up to one of the houses. Instead, he took a dark driveway that she’d originally missed, rough and covered in gravel. Trees edged close to the road, hemming them in and stealing all the light. Elliot turned his high beams on, though the driveway appeared to be fairly straight.
After a distance—possibly as much as a quarter mile—the road opened up again and they pulled into a clearing, with a house and a garage on the far side.
AJ would have never known this house was back here. The driveway looked like an old service road. Had Phoebe kept it that way to keep away visitors? Maybe. Though AJ hadn’t seen them, she would bet that there had been at least half a dozen “No Trespassing” signs posted along the road.
A single light shone from the dark house. When AJ stepped from the car, the evening seemed hushed and expectant. Winds blew through the trees surrounding them. The sky was still clear, still cold, with just a light scattering of stars across it, like a frozen picture. Wet mulch and pine scents filled the air, more wild than AJ had expected. She’d pictured Phoebe Reed as a city creature, more urban than farmhouse.
Maybe she’d been wrong.
Then again, no one had even known she’d had a son.
Seemed that Phoebe had kept much hidden during her lifetime, and those secrets had followed her into death.
The house was a single-story rambler, like most of the houses that AJ had seen in Milltown. However, once inside, she finally saw the opulence that everyone assumed of Phoebe. The floor was covered in beautiful brown-marble tiles, shot through with gold. A rich cream-colored paint took up the walls. Shelves filled with what AJ assumed were expensive collectibles lined the vestibule, like fancy glass and an array of silver serving dishes.
AJ wasn’t an expert on antiques, but she’d bet that the little table in front of her was at least one hundred years old, along with the stool beside it. The air smelled of disinfectant, though the pretty bowl full of lavender potpourri was doing its best to overcome it. It was chilly in here, as if the heat had been turned off with Phoebe’s death.
Doors opened up on either side of the small entranceway. Elliot turned to the right and opened one. “This way,” Elliot said.
AJ hesitated. “Is there a restroom that I can use?” She actually didn’t need it. She just really, really wanted to run some water over her hands.
“Sure, just past the office,” Elliot said.
“Thank you,” AJ said. She hurried past him, toward the door he’d indicated. The hallway barely registered—just a long corridor, with beaded light wood wainscoting running three feet tall on either side, and a line of black-and-white artistic photos at eye level.
The bathroom followed that modern design, with bronze tile on the floor, slate-gray paint on the walls, and contrasting white fixtures. More art hung in here, watercolors of stormy ocean scenes, all grays and blacks with just the slightest hint of blue. That blue was picked up with the towels hanging next to the sink and stacked in the shelves next to the tub.
It looked like a magazine spread, not some place anyone used regularly. Was it the guest bathroom? Must be. No woman, particularly not a woman who’d worn as much makeup as Phoebe Reed, used this room.
Fortunately, not only did the bathroom have a toilet and sink but also a standing bathtub with clawed feet. AJ rapped her knuckles on the side, ascertaining that it was, indeed, made out of cast iron.
That assured her more than she could say. She didn’t know why.
She flushed the toilet in case Elliot was listening, then ran water over her hands in the sink, letting it pour down from the standing faucet and into the bowl. Then she splashed water onto her face, wishing she could stick her entire head under the faucet.
When the water started to take on a slight glow, AJ resolutely turned her face away.
Though she’d been feeling better since she’d stopped trying to use her powers, she wasn’t about to force the issue now. Particularly not with Elliot waiting for her in the other room.
With regret, AJ turned off the water, dried her hands and her face with the fluffy towel next to the sink, then went out to face whatever was coming next, despite the sense of dread overtaking her.
Chapter Nineteen
This time, AJ stepped into a room that was familiar. Not because she’d been there before, but because this was the place of her most recent vision. The only difference was that the big wooden desk was in its proper place instead of being closer to the middle of the room.
Bookcases lined the walls behind the desk, like poor sentries overlooking the owner’s work. Lamps stood in the corners, with decorative glass bowls. The ceiling rose up, far above her head, giving the room an airy feeling.
And there was a pile of books on one of the lower shelves on the left-hand side, held together with a strap. Gladys’s books?
Looking at the room in person, AJ saw a lot more details. The overhead light glared down harshly on the scene. She’d bet that normally, Phoebe lit the place with the black torchiers in the corners. Heat suffused the room, unlike the vestibule, as if the temperature had been turned up quite a few degrees to keep its occupants uncomfortable and sweating. Windows lined one wall, dark eyes staring blindly out into the night. The floor was covered in expensive laminate planks, designed to look like natural hardwood and doing a good job at it.
The air held an acrid smell, that same gunpowder scent that AJ had smelled earlier. Plus, the scent of disinfectant was stronger here. Underneath all of that lay a coppery scent.
Phoebe hadn’t been killed here, had she been? Her body had been found in the parking lot of her store. Had it been dumped there? If she’d been killed here, it might have been a week or more before someone found the body. If not longer.
Elliot was looking at AJ expectantly.
“Well?” he asked.
“This is the place I saw,” AJ said, nodding. She forced herself to take a step forward into the room, then to keep walking across the floor.
Yes, she was there to find Phoebe’s books.
However, she was now certain that those books on the shelf were Gladys’s books. She felt drawn to them, as though they contained an irresistible magnet. She placed one hand on the stack. Cold raced up her arm, as if she’d placed it in a freezer.
Or as though she’d been touched by a ghost.
“We’ve never talked compensation,” AJ said slowly, turning toward Elliot.
He shifted from one foot to the other. “I want you to find Phoebe’s books. Then we’ll talk payment.”
AJ nodded. “I want these books for payment,” she told him as she patted the stack. “Nothing more.”
“Why? What do those books contain?” Elliot asked suspiciously.
“Nothing related to Phoebe Reed’s death,” AJ assured him. “You can look through them. They’re antiques that belong to the inn.”
Elliot looked confused, but AJ wasn’t about to explain further.
Instead, she walked over to the desk. “Here. Help me move this out of the way.”
“You think the safe is under the desk?” Elliot asked. “I didn’t think to check the floor there. That would be a pain in the ass to get to.”
“True,” AJ said. “Which makes it a good hiding place.”
The pair of them lifted the desk and got it pushed to one side, slanted almost exactly how AJ had seen it. Then she rolled up the rug, exposing more of the laminate floor.
Close up, she didn’t see any seams in the flooring.
This was the spot, though. She was certain of it.
After a few minutes of futile searching, AJ stood up and walked back toward the door, trying to find her original vantage point.
There. She hadn’t been looking for the compartment far enough away from the wall. The spot hadn’t been directly under the desk, where one would put one’s feet, but a little forward of that.
For a moment, the square blazed with a bright light, outlining its location.
AJ glanced at Elliot, but he hadn’t seen anything. He was still looking in their original location, where the desk had been.
AJ walked directly over to the location, telling Elliot, “It’s here.” She used a finger to trace the barely visible seam.
Elliot gave a low whistle. “You found it.”
“I found something,” AJ corrected. “We don’t know what’s under here.”
Elliot tried using his fingers to pry up the square, but he couldn’t get any leverage.
“How do you open it?” he whined.
AJ glanced at the desk. Was there a remote control hidden in its drawers?
She found her gaze drifting back toward the bookshelf behind where the desk had been. The books has been shifting in and out in her vision.
“Let me try something,” AJ said as she stood back up and walked over to the bookcase.
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to see exactly what her vision had been telling her.
There. On the second shelf. The book on the end. That was one of the ones that had been prominent in her vision.
AJ slid that book out of the case. The book felt heavy in her hands.
A loud click echoed behind her.
Eagerly, AJ turned to see.
Nope. Just unlocked one of the locks on the cover.
She looked back at the bookcase, trying to remember the other books that had slid in and out.
There was a second book on the same shelf as the first one she’d pulled out. As soon as she moved it, another click followed.
The third one was in the second bookcase, down and to her right.
The fourth and final one was up high. Fortunately, AJ was tall enough to reach it. Elliot would have needed a stool.
With a last ominous click, the square in the floor lifted up.
Elliot sat there with his mouth open. “Wow,” he said softly. “I never would have found that on my own.”
AJ nodded, pleased with herself. She hurried over to see what the hidden compartment contained.
Purple and blue velvet bags sat on the top. AJ recognized them as jeweler bags.
Elliot looked as though he was about to toss them to the side, when AJ took them carefully from him.
The first bag held a beautiful diamond pendent necklace. The center stone was at least a half inch across. The second was a luminous pearl necklace with matching earrings. Probably not worth as much as the diamonds, though AJ would bet that they were still valuable. The third bag contained a delicate diamond-encrusted watch.
“Whose were these? Your grandmother’s?” AJ guessed.
“How would I know?” Elliot grumbled as he continued to pull bags and papers out of the safe.
That was strange. Was it because it was all women’s jewelry? Surely he’d know something about the pieces.
Elliot pulled up a binder next. AJ recognized the Jax family’s name on the spine—probably Phoebe’s will. Again, she rescued it from Elliot before he tossed it away carelessly.
At the bottom of the foot-deep compartment lay a large ledger book, with a black cloth cover. It was ten inches high and almost twice that long.
