Page 74 of A Seer and Present Danger

“What would you say if I told you there were magical things,” her voice lowered, “real magical things in the world?”

I lowered my voice too. “I’d say you were trying to make money. Curses sell.”

“Exactly! Haunted sells, lucky sells—you have no idea how many rabbits’ feet I’ve sold to the top bidder. I think someone in this town is sitting on a very special item. It might even be a magical item.”

There were several dozen someones who had magical items in this town. Heck, most of the town itself was magical.

I leaned toward her. “What kind of item?”

I had a feeling I knew what she was talking about. Pandora’s box. That’s why she’d wanted to know if I’d checked Hugo’s pockets. She thought he had it.

She thought he’d stolen it.

Or maybe he had contacted her to set up a time to assess it, just like he’d contacted Vandre. Maybe he’d been killed before they could meet.

It would explain why she had such a bad opinion of Hugo. She’d missed out on proving her antiquing ability.

“It’s a bear,” she said, derailing my Pandora train. “It’s one of those talking bears Kenny had in his shop.”

“A bear?”

“What? Did you think it was something else?”

“No.” (Yes.) I leaned back. “Is the bear…um…haunted?”

“Not exactly. But I think it’s carrying a powerful curse.”

“Is it that anyone who puts it in a shop window will go bankrupt. And be killed?”

She gave me a swift smile. “You know how this stuff is. Most of the hauntings and magical stuff is just talk, so what it actually might do depends on who’s doing the talking. But I’ll tell you this.” She leaned forward. “I think whoever finds that cursed bear is going to make good money.”

“They’ve been donated, packed away. The bears are going to kids.”

“They won’t if you and I go through the boxes and remove them.”

I was already shaking my head. “We can’t do that.”

“Isn’t there a master list that tracks which donation is going where? All we have to do is get our hands on the master list and pull the bears. You said there were only two dozen.”

“That’s a lot.”

“Okay, look at it this way. If it’s true, if one of the bears is cursed, then you’ll be giving a child a cursed object. A child, Piper.”

That wasn’t good. A real curse could do real damage.

“I’ll talk to Bertie. It’s her charity drive. She’ll know what to do.”

“Like she’ll believe in a cursed object,” she grumbled.

“You don’t know her. She wouldn’t want a cursed item out in the world doing damage to someone.”

“I say we take care of it ourselves. We’d be good at it, we’d be fast at it, and I promise whatever deal I make selling the bear, I will cut you in on it.”

Futures flashed:

And none of them were good.

CHAPTER 15