Page 54 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Spite & Spellwork

“You know, they have them in mystery shows all the time. You put all the evidence up on a board with pictures and facts and then you connect it all with red string and the music swells—and you do not know what the hell I am talking about.”

Avery grinned. “No. But I am rather enjoying you describing it.” Typically, Avery kept all the information in her head. It was one of the few things her head had always been rather good at. Though, and she was not certain if this was fortunate or regrettable, she could not bring Saga into her head, so something they could look at together would prove useful.

“What are you two doing?” Lahiri asked from the doorway.

Avery pushed up to show him the photograph and save him the indignity of lying on the floor. “I believe we found what our thief might have been looking for.”

The man peered down at the image, tilting his head. “Box that size, it could be almost anything…”

“I appreciate an open mind, Inspector, but that may be entirely too open. This box would be approximately thirty-one centimeters in length, twenty in width…” She flashed him an impish grin. “I can think of far more things that wouldn’t fit in a box that size than things that would.”

“It’s a figure of speech. It’s not a lot to go on.”

“A lot of people keep photographs and keepsakes in shoeboxes,” said Saga, who was now looking at Lahiri like a cat who had caught a glimpse of prey.

Lahiri nodded obliviously, his attention still focused on the image. “What else was under the bed?”

Saga’s intense gaze relaxed. “What you’d expect. Shoes and out-of-season clothing she didn’t want to clutter her closet with.”

“It is still early,” Avery said, leading them both back to the main room. “Far too early to draw conclusions when we are still gathering information. The search is still broad, but it is narrowed with this information. That is all that matters at this point in time.” Avery produced a bay leaf as she had in Bell, Book, and Candle the day before. “Guard the door for me, would you? But leave it open.”

Saga obliged immediately.

However, after the storm of smoke and shadow settled once more, it too provided lackluster results. No magic had been visibly cast in the apartment either.

“Impossible,” said Lahiri.

“Improbable,” Avery corrected.

“There’s something here,” called Saga from the door, gesturing them both over. Her gloved finger hovered over a darkness that filled the keyhole and was barely visible but crackling with the same flame-like glow as the runes.

Avery smiled. “And that, Inspector Lahiri, is why we did not assume someone had used her keys.”

Chapter 13 Saga

“Don’t fancy condos usually have security cameras?” Saga asked, leaning forward from the back seat of Reza’s car.

“I asked, but that would be a different warrant entirely.”

“Ah, bureaucracy,” mused Avery from the front.

Saga ignored this obvious attempt to jab at Lahiri’s procedure. “They wouldn’t just give it to you?”

Her uncle’s attention remained strictly on the road. “People like their privacy, and our warrant extended to Betsey Paris’s home and nothing else. However, with the evidence from her home, I can submit another request, and we’ll get the footage.”

“Or,” Avery offered. “We could have let me glamour the warrant to include the footage and we wouldn’t be at the whims of paperwork.”

“How you run an investigation without me is your business,” came Reza’s stiff reply. “When I am involved, you will do it to the letter of Mundane law.”

Avery arched a mischievous brow. “But not the spirit?”

“You know what I meant,” Reza huffed. “We are guests of this world, and so we will respect its rules.”

It was as if Saga could hear Avery’s eyes rolling. “I could have taken the footage without you.”

“And how would you have reviewed that security footage, hm?” Reza grinned, glanced at Avery, and grinned wider still. “It is not the worst to do some things by the book.”

Avery grumbled incoherently, but Saga caught the words “two hundred,” “technology,” and “stupid.”