Page 33 of Tricks for Free

The question was casual, but the many things it meant were anything but. Emily was a routewitch. She could ward my home against Mary in a heartbeat. I didn’t know whether she could do it from a distance. I had to assume yes. Routewitches are all about distance, and this one was short enough to be effectively null.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “It’s the relative I told you about.”

Mary’s eyebrows climbed higher.

“Do you know what kind of ghost it is?”

There was the five-million-dollar question. If the Lowryland cabal was on my side, my answer wouldn’t change anything: a dead aunt was a dead aunt, even if I was pretending she was a dead grandmother, and all dead relatives were worth preserving. If they were secretly the bad guys, having access to a crossroads ghost would be a temptation too far.

“Road ghost,” I said. “That’s all she’s ever been willing to tell us. She died on the road, and now she’s a road ghost.”

“Ah,” said Emily. “Colin was very displeased to hear that you’d been injured. Your shifts for tomorrow have been cancelled due to medical reasons. He expects you at his office by nine AM.”

The line went dead. I hung the phone up gingerly, turning to fully face the others.

“Guess I’ve got class in the morning,” I said.

“Guess I’m going to talk to a man about a monkey,” said Mary, and disappeared.

My eyes went wide and my fingers went hot. “Mary?” I squawked. “Mary!”

She didn’t reappear.

I covered my face with my hands. Fern patted me awkwardly on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Maybe he won’t come.”

I groaned.

Ten

“Believe me, I want to be here even less than you do. Now, are we going to fight like civilized people, or am I going to stand here and taunt you?”

–Jane Harrington-Price

The Public Relations building of Lowryland, at way too goddamn early in the morning

EITHER COLIN DIDN’T TRUST me or he didn’t trust the Lowryland train system, because when I opened my apartment door at eight-thirty, there was a sleek black car idling at the curb. Fern and Megan clustered in the doorway behind me, staring.

Megan made a clucking noise with her tongue. “Whoever he is, marry him and keep us in the style to which we’d like to become accustomed.”

“He works in Public Relations.”

“Whoever he is, murder him and make it look like an accident, but make sure you get away with his wallet,” Megan amended.

“Thanks for the vote of murder-confidence,” I said.

She flashed me a bright, toothy smile. “I always have faith in you when it comes to murder.”

Fern tugged on my arm. When I turned to face her, she reached up and pulled me into a hug with suddenly heavy arms, effectively trapping me long enough for her to whisper, “Be careful,” in my ear.

She let me go. I nodded, trying to show that I understood, before I stepped into the humid morning air and walked down the path toward the waiting car. The sky was bruised black along the horizon, speaking of a storm to come. When I opened the car’s rear door, a blast of air-conditioning nearly rocked me back on my heels.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m Melody West. Are you here for me?”

“Get in,” said the driver gruffly.

I got in.