“Say hi for us,” Mia called after her.
“Was your grandmother blushing?” Christina asked after the apartment front door closed. “She was a little dressed up to be making potions, right?”
“I guess she made her choice. It must be hard for Robert to be left for a golem.” Mia watched Damien get out of his car. His long dress coat made him look like a lawyer. In fact, she thought her dad had the same coat. She needed to call her parents. It had slipped off her list lately, mostly because they would want her to come home to Boise for Christmas, and bring Grans and Trent.
Grans wasn’t a problem, even if she had to bring Damien too. But Trent? He had family here, and asking him to give up Christmas with the Majorses for the less-than-exciting meal with her parents filled Mia with dread. Not to mention the questions.Was it serious? Were they looking at a date?She’d hate to tell them that the wedding would have to wait until after they potty-trained the hellhound and the dragon matured a little. And they wondered why she never brought a boyfriend home. Mom would understand, but from what Mia knew, Dad was fully human.
She sighed. Her life didn’t used to be this complicated. She turned to Christina. “Thirty minutes.”
Thirty turned into fifty before they were in the car. Christina drove, which saved Mia from having to defrost her beater. The car always had a bit of a gas smell when she drove it, like it would burst into flames at any moment. Trent said it was her imagination, but Miadidn’t think so. One day, she’d be in the car and turn over the engine and that would be all.
She didn’t like thinking of bad things. Instead, she asked Christina about the wedding planning and the girl was still talking as they drove into the parking lot for the Lodge. The one thing that always distracted Christina was asking about the upcoming wedding.
As they walked into the Lodge, Mia aimed toward the registration desk. She smiled at the young man who stood there, waiting. “Hi, Matt. This is Christina Adams, if you don’t know her already. She’s going to be here shadowing for a while, so if you see her go into the employee-only areas, don’t freak out, okay?”
Blake came around the corner. “Your friend is shadowing you? What happened to the Portland job? Couldn’t cut it in the big city?”
Mia started to say something, but Christina stepped in between them and laid her hand on Mia’s arm. “I didn’t realize you were following my career so closely, Ms. Sandburg. I’m honored at your interest. But no, they didn’t fire me, they’re looking at a more extensive role for me. I’ll be taking on all of their smaller facilities, like your cute little Lodge. Standardization is the key to quality and cost effectiveness, don’t you think?”
Blake mumbled some sort of agreement. Then her eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”
“Like Mia said, I’m shadowing. I’m sure as soon as you check your email, you’ll see that my presence has been approved by your supervisors.” Christina stopped talking. Mia felt like she was watching a game of chicken. Each woman waited for the other to blink.
Blake lost the game and walked away. “Whatever.”
Mia turned back to Matt. “I was also wondering if I could see the bill for a Suzanne Parker. Can you send her information to my work email?”
“When did she check in?” Matt hurried to write down the name, glad to be out of the battle zone.
Mia gave him the details as she knew them, then paused. “That start date might be wrong, so push it out a few days if you don’t find it on that Monday. Thanks.”
As she and Christina walked to the back of the great room and toward Mia’s office, she said, “You handled Blake well. Another lesson from your mom?”
“She does have a way about her.” Christina giggled. “I didn’t like the way she treated ‘the help,’ as she called anyone who did anything for her or the family, but I learned from the best when I need to pull out my entitled side. I should have Blake totally ignoring you before I leave. She’ll be too scared to browbeat you even a little.”
“Blake’s not that bad,” Mia said, then laughed. “Okay, at least she’s better than my last boss, who was actively trying to get me fired.”
Christina looked behind them. “I don’t know. I’ve met people like Blake before, and all they worry about is what they’re getting out of you. I’m not sure she’s on your side at all.”
CHAPTER9
Mia found Christina sitting at the interview table in her office after the morning meeting. She was surfing the internet on her laptop.
Christina stood to get more coffee as Mia came inside. “You’re not going to believe what I found. Come sit down.”
Mia did what she was told, grinning at Christina’s excitement about her sleuthing. “Can you bring over that pot? I need more coffee after that horrible meeting. My head is killing me. Blake is implementing more forms. A pre-evaluation of the event before it even begins. She’s a horror.”
“She finds comfort in numbers and forms.” Christina filled her cup, then put the pot back. “Anyway, Suzanne Parker is a really common name, until you add in the Salem thing. Then the sightings fall into a straight line. Either this woman was three hundred and thirty-three years old, give or take, when she was murdered,or her family has a lineage tradition of naming the first-born daughters Suzanne Parker.”
Christina showed Mia all the notations where a Suzanne Parker made the news. “And, most interesting, our current Suzanne Parker owns a plot of land here in Magic Springs.”
“She has a house here?” Mia turned the laptop to see it.
“No, just an empty plot of land. She lives in a condo on Virginia Beach. I’ve seen the pictures from when it was on Zillow. You need to work for the National Office. Those people make bank. Of course, she bought it about ten years ago, so it’s gone up in value, but she has a balcony and the building has a rooftop pool. I’m rethinking our move to Oregon.” Christina handed her a folder. “I printed the stuff I knew was our Suzanne Parker. She reads a lot and posts reviews. She’s not very nice in them, but sometimes she finds a book she kind of likes. If I read that many duds, according to her, I would give up reading.”
“She lived on the beach, she reads, and her family owns property here in the area.” Mia flipped through the pages. “You did a lot of work in an hour.”
“You were gone for two. I was about ready to go find you when you walked in the door. Why did you say an hour?” Now Christina was studying her.
