Chapter 7

Chapter

Seven

O peration Find a Clue (JFC, any clue will do)

Wanda looked at me in the rearview mirror of Marty’s SUV. “How is it that a five-year-old can convince you to wear a dozen butterflies in your hair, but we can’t convince you to wear anything but hoodies and work boots?”

“Because neither one of you two nutcases are anywhere near as cute as a five-year-old?”

I couldn’t get those two out of my head. They were sweet kids who faced a fucked-up situation and it pissed me off, but it also made me sad.

Marty plucked at my hair and chuckled. “You’re so fancy,” she cooed at me. “My one true wish is that you could see it. The new swear words we’d learn would be off the charts.”

I didn’t have to see it to feel it. I had more clips in my hair than a teenager had pimples. They were hanging in my face, swinging by my ears. Oh, and there was ribbon threaded through this mess in my least favorite color—yellow. I’m pretty sure I looked like My Little Pony had exploded all over my head.

But I’d promised Lacy I wouldn’t take it out until I washed my hair. I never break a promise—especially to a kid.

“I know you hate the color yellow, but I still say it’s in your color wheel.” Marty tugged the length of my hair, still wrapped up in a weird sort of ponytail on the side of my head.

I swatted at her intrusive hands. “Forget my damn hair and focus on what I’m telling you about the sparkles Lacy said she saw. That sounds fishy…maybe even paranormal…”

I’d given that some thought as we prepared to scour Brenda’s place for anything that might help us figure out if she was being framed. From everything she’d told us so far, it didn’t seem like she had any friends, let alone enemies who hated her enough to frame her for murder.

But if the lady who was stinky was a person of interest, and nothing the kids had said really led me to believe she was, it was still fucked up the way Lacy explained her fingertips. It felt like it meant something.

Paranormals walk among us. We’re all over—mingling with humans, living our lives right beside them while they’re completely unaware. Maybe it was just a paranormal who lived in the apartment building…or maybe it wasn’t…

“Sparkles on her fingertips, you say?” Marty asked as we pulled up a few streets away from Brenda’s house. “What in all of heaven’s name does that mean? Did she say what the lady looked like?”

I pushed a strand of my bedazzled-to-death hair out of my face. “Neither one of them had a whole lot to say about what she looked like. Owen said they saw her sometimes when they were going to their dad’s apartment. So she lives in the apartment building or visits someone there—they didn’t know for sure. She’s old was the best I got out of ’em. No name, and Owen Sr. told them to mind their business and not talk to her. Maybe she sent up parental signals—you know, stranger danger?”

Marty clucked her tongue. “The bit about his grampa from Arizona, too. That stuck with me. Astrid said her parents were coming from Arizona to help. Maybe we could pop back over and give him a sniff?”

Wanda turned the car off, planting her hands on the steering wheel. “Well, I don’t know about a smelly grampa, but sparkles could definitely mean someone paranormal, which leans toward Brenda being framed, but why? Who’d want to frame her?”

“That’s definitely the million-dollar question. We also need to question this dude, Derek…did you get his last name and information?”

Marty grinned. “He was easy enough to find. Derek Simpkins, in his early thirties, lives somewhere here on the island. I bet his address wouldn’t be hard to discover.”

“We need to pay him a visit, for sure,” I said. “Hey, I meant to ask, how did you guys get out of Astrid’s, anyway?”

One minute I was playing with the kids, and the next, Wanda was wagging her finger at me because it was time to go.

“Thankfully, she forgot all about the white-cheeked spider monkeys, but we promised to check on her in a couple of days, to be sure her parents got in all right from Arizona and the kids were squared away.”

I felt a little relief that she’d at least have help. “Okay, we’ll hunt down Derek tomorrow. Right now, we need to worry about getting into Brenda’s house without you two being caught on someone’s security cam. It’s a pretty frickin’ ritzy neighborhood. I’m sure there are plenty of cameras everywhere. She said if we stick to the bushes in the back and stay low, we should be okay to get into her cellar door. But we’re quick. If we do show up on someone’s security camera’s, we’ll be a blur.”

Marty nodded. “Another reason I insisted we wear all black.”

I held up the black ski mask she’d given me to wear. “The hell, Blondie. You insisted we wear black so you’d have another opportunity to play fucking dress-up.”

She shrugged her shoulders at me with a sly smile and a wink. “I like to get into character. So sue me.”

Wanda held up a finger. “Okay, you two, let’s get this show on the road. I want to get this over and done with without getting caught. I’d prefer not to have to call Heath and ask him to cough up bail money.” She turned around and looked at us in the backseat. “You two ready?”

I nodded my fancy head. “Ready.”

We’d parked on a side street by a convenience store, so we wouldn’t raise any eyebrows in Brenda’s shi-shi-foo-foo neighborhood. I put the ski mask on—even if I didn’t really need it because I won’t show up on cameras—and popped the back door open, sliding out, preparing to make the mile or so hike to Brenda’s.

I have to admit, the good parts involved in being a vampire are really sweet. There’s nothing like being able to run as fast as a bullet train. I battle with myself every day, wondering if it’s better than being able to eat chicken wings and slug down a cold beer, though.

As we ran toward Brenda’s, kicking up snow as we went, streets passing us at the speed of light, the freedom I felt invigorated me, helping to clear my head. I let my worries about the kids go for a sec and focused on finding clues at Brenda’s.

Marty stopped short just shy of Brenda’s property, plastering herself up against a tree on the sidewalk. I nearly took her out, skidding to a halt just before I ran into her.

Wanda looked up and down the street, signaling to us that it was safe like she was some kinda air traffic control employee, wildly waving her hands and jumping up and down.

JFC, I swear, there’s nothing subtle about us. We might as well put our names on a billboard with flashing neon lights and arrows so everyone knows we’re gonna break into Brenda Bronkowski’s house.

Following Wanda’s lead, we scurried across the street like cat burglars, diving into the bushes that lined her house in the backyard. Like in a cartoon, I could almost hear the keys of a piano plink, signifying each step we took.

We looked like idiots dressed in black, pretending to know what we were doing.

Creeping our way to where Brenda said her cellar door was located, I heard Marty hiss and Wanda swear as we crawled through the bushes. P/s, Wanda almost never swears.

I found the cellar door first, hunkering down low before yanking it open. We flew down the stairs, leading to another door Brenda had given us a key for.

I jammed the key in the lock and stepped inside a musty cellar holding nothing much but cobwebs and a bunch of boxes the cops had torn open and rifled through. Christmas decorations were strewn across the floor—Halloween, too—but a quick scan didn’t reveal anything of interest.

Yanking off my stupid face mask, I stuffed it in my pocket, knocking off some of the clips in my hair. I bent to scoop them up so I didn’t leave any evidence behind.

We took the staircase to the first floor, pushing open the door to reveal Brenda’s kitchen—a high-tech wonder of appliances she probably never used. I wouldn’t use mine if not for Charlie and Carl, though Arch makes good use of it often to cook family dinners.

Marty busied herself plucking leaves from Wanda’s black turtleneck (which explained the swearing) while I scanned the kitchen that opened to an enormous great room with big, puffy furniture, a fireplace, and lots of throw pillows tossed everywhere.

No wonder Marty and Wanda felt a kinship with Brenda. The multitude of throw pillows she possessed said it all. What is it about throw pillows that speaks to so many damn people?

All the kitchen cabinets were open, but they didn’t have much in them. If you didn’t eat, you didn’t need utensils. The drawers were the same deal, open and tossed by the cops with nothing much to see.

Marty whistled as we looked around. “This is some place, huh? Those marble floors in the entryway alone cost a fortune. Not to mention, real wood floors. Ask me, I know.”

“So she’s not poor. We can expect a big donation to the charity of our choice. Yay. We’re not here to flip her house, Marty. We’re here for some damn clues, which we desperately need or there’s gonna be no donations but toward our bail money when this whole fucking Operation Find a Clue lands us in jail.”

But Wanda wasn’t listening to me. She was goo-goo eyed over the décor. “Brenda said she comes from family money. Oil or some such thing. She said investing wisely was the key.”

I planted my hands on my hips, leaning back on the gigantic island with a shiny silver sink in the middle of yet more white marble. “You know, did she ever say how she was turned in the first place? According to Greg, it happened during a time period when shit got crazy-hinky for vamps. Humans were hunting them left and right.”

Wanda provided the answer. “She claims it happened in a raid at some big gala ball her family traditionally threw every year. They were warned vampires were on the loose, but her brother, a stubborn guy, refused to cave and call it off.”

“She was a widow at the time, and in that day and age, she became her brother’s responsibility. I guess they didn’t get along, and her dead husband left her destitute. Anyway, he wanted to marry her off. He thought the ball was a good way to find a suitor,” Marty added, with a wrinkle of her nose.

My disbelief was real. “He wanted to find her a husband at sixty-two?”

Wanda clucked her tongue. “Well, yes. Back in the day that’s how it was done, and if they didn’t get along, he’d want to foist her off on any takers available—especially at her advanced age. The dowry paid would be small, and she’d be out of his hair.”

Rolling up my sleeves, I shook my head. Heathens. All of ’em. “So where does being turned to a vamp fit in?”

“These vampires raided the ball and went on a rampage. Brenda’s entire family was killed, including her brother. But somehow she survived, and therefore inherited everything. She ran the company from that point on, until she sold it in the seventies. I have no clue how she kept her true identity hidden for all those years, though. I mean, surely someone noticed she didn’t age…”

Huh. I’m proud to be a vampire, but I’m not so proud of the ways of old. I like a good tussle as much as the next ragey bitch, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have survived a fucking era where vampires ran rampant and drained everyone in sight.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I asked, “So then there must be some record of a massacre like that, right? You know vampires love documenting every fucking thing. When we’re done here, we should dig deeper. Maybe it’s someone from her past who wants to frame her?”

Marty tapped the marble counter with her fingernail. “That’s a long time to hold a grudge, don’t you think?”

“Well, when you’re immortal, it gives you a lot of time to think. We weren’t turned in the dark ages of vamps. Shit was different for us. Hell, it’s even more different now than when we first opened OOPS. Maybe someone’s just been waitin’ around to mess with her. It’s a stretch, but not impossible.”

Wanda pointed to the living room. “Fair enough, but for now, we need to get moving. We’ll discuss that angle later when we get back to the castle.”

I jabbed a finger in the air. “I’ll take upstairs, you guys down here, agreed?”

They both nodded. “Agreed.”

I made my way through the living room to another staircase, wide and shiny, taking me up to an open room where there were tons of bookcases and one of those chairs-and-a-half.

And I only I know it’s called a chair-and-a-half because Marty spent three months hunting for the right one for her house. The information did me about as much good as an algebra class ever did. Sitting next to it, Brenda’s beloved needlepoint, half hanging out of a big wicker basket.

The hallway beyond was long and broad, with four bedrooms total. There were lots of pictures along the way, some I’m assuming of her family, due to the clothing they wore.

I decided to start with Brenda’s room first. Unsurprisingly, it was in the same condition as the rest of the house—all torn up.

Her silky comforter was half on, half off the bed, with more pillows thrown on the floor than on the mattress. Even the flowing curtains were crooked.

I put my gloves on, because I still don’t know if I have detectable DNA, and began sifting through her nightstand drawers. Nothing but a bunch of girly stuff like creams and moisturizers and spongey things I think were used for applying makeup.

I looked under her bed, felt around the floor just in case the cops had missed something small the way they did with her nail, but I was comin’ up dry.

Noting the walk-in closet the size of a small mobile home, I decided that was next on my list. Until I heard Marty call me from downstairs, her voice filled with her typical hectic energy.

“Nina! Get your gorgeous butt down here, vampire!”

I blew out of the closet and raced back down the stairs to find Marty and Wanda looking at a picture, holding it up with their gloved hands.

A picture that sparkled .

What in the name of glitter?

“Where the hell did you find that?” I asked, pulling out my phone to take a picture. My nostrils flared as I did. I smelled… magic . I knew the scent because of one of our more recent OOPS cases with an accidental turning. Her name was Robbie, and she was a great kid who’d accidentally been turned into a witch.

In fact, she’d set my damn hair on fire with her out-of-control magic. I knew the smell well.

Marty held it up, squinting at the bright light it omitted. “It was taped under the mantel.”

“Taped under the mantel? Who the fuck puts a picture under the mantel and what made you look there?”

Marty rolled her big baby blues at me. “I was looking to see what kind of wood it was. I mean, it’s gorgeous.”

“You’re supposed to be looking for clues, Marty,” I reminded her.

“I’m a decorator at heart. I can’t help it. Decorating is in my blood. It’s like Nate and Jeremiah possesses me and I lose all control of my faculties, okay? Forget that. Take a really good look at the picture, Nina.”

Now I squinted, the sparkles surrounding the pic irritating my sensitive eyes. It was a pic of a guy…an incredibly good-looking guy, dressed in an ascot and a suit, a lot like the suits Greg’s ancestors wore.

But whoa Nellie! Holy spitballs—he looked like… “What the hell is going on? He looks a lot like Owen.”

Wanda rocked back on her heels as she sucked on her teeth. “Darn tootin’ he does.”

The moment she agreed with me was the second the picture flew from Marty’s hands, up into the high tray ceilings, before it exploded into a million pieces.

That’s when the room began to quake.

I looked around for the source of the chaos, but Marty fell into me, knocking me to the ground. Her head slammed against the floor, knocking her out cold.

Swirls of light rushed through the air, shooting streaming flames.

Hauling Marty into my arms, I looked for Wanda as the furniture began to lift into the air, turning into heavy projectiles aimed directly at us.

Wanda blocked the couch, catching it like some kind of NFL quarterback, hurling it toward the other end of the room. The furniture that wasn’t airborne skidded across the hardwood floors at a scarily high rate of speed.

“Wanda! Duck!” I hollered as a mirror unhinged itself from the wall, heading straight for her.

She dove for the kitchen, sliding across the floor to scramble behind the island before the mirror crashed to the ground, splintering and scattering everywhere.

Dragging an unconscious Marty with me, I fought my way to the kitchen, trying to dodge pillows that somehow managed to hit me square in the face anyway.

“The cellar door!” Wanda yelled as the floor literally rocked beneath our feet. “Get to the cellar door!”

I forced my way to my feet, trying to keep my balance enough to get to the cellar. Throwing Marty over my shoulder like a ragdoll, head down, I steamrolled my way through plants flying at me while the rumble of the furniture nipped at my heels.

Wanda grabbed my hand as she hauled open the door, which ripped off its hinges, tearing ass out of the room. She pulled me down the wooden stairs to the cellar while the entire house rumbled and groaned, racing across the room and up the stairs to the door that would lead us outside.

I heard her yell a warrior cry one last time as she shot through the door leading to the backyard. We fell out of it, hitting the ground hard with grunts.

Dogs began to bark, porch lights flickered on, doors opened.

Shit, shit, shit. “Go!” I hissed. “Run!”

We took off back the way we came, Marty on my shoulder, her limp body bashing against my back.

I was never so glad to see Marty’s big SUV as I was tonight, sitting there in the dark, a behemoth of a machine.

Wanda beeped the car, throwing open the back door before climbing into the driver’s seat. I launched Marty into the back with more force than I’d intended. So much so, she was gonna feel it tomorrow.

We took off like a shot just as police sirens sounded around us, tearing ass toward the highway.

Tucking Marty to my side, I pulled some tissues from what I laughingly called her Mary Poppins purse because it always had everything in it but the kitchen sink and began to dab at the gash on her head as she stirred.

As we drove back to the Long Island, I fought my anger. Did Brenda know about this guy that looked a fucking great deal like Owen Barker, and if so, who was he and why was his pictures stashed under her mantel?

All things that made me go hmmm .