Chapter Twenty-Nine

“I should have you arrested for trespassing.” Mrs. Sinclair took a long drag of her cigarette. “Then I should have you charged with hacking my bank account.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

She snorted and took another pull of the cigarette. “With Nancy as the lead investigator in the case? Bet she’ll sweep it under the rug.”

“I think she’ll be more interested in how you got thirty thousand dollars and who gave it to you.” I’d made Nell and Craig stay home, but brought Serge as backup. I was ambushing Mrs. Sinclair. I didn’t need her to feel overwhelmed by the number of people crashing her house.

Her place was startlingly clean. Maybe everyone grieves in their own way and her method was to declutter. Dad would’ve gotten a kick out of me scrubbing the house as a way to grieve him. I could almost hear his voice, “Geez, why didn’t I think of dying sooner? Hey, my girl, you missed a spot.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“You don’t,” I said. “I already know it was Principal Larry.”

“So why are you here?”

“Why did he give you the money?”

She smirked. “From the generosity of his heart.” She ground out the cigarette.

“I don’t remember her smoking,” Serge said.

Neither did I. “When did that start up?” I pointed to the ashtray.

“There are a lot of things you give up when you’re a parent.” She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t need to give them up anymore.”

There was no good place to go with that. “Why did he give you the money?”

“Get out of my house.”

“I know he tried to hide the source of the deposit,” I told her. “But I know it was him.”

She watched me. “And how do you know any of this?”

“I have my connections.”

Serge smiled.

She said nothing.

“Don’t you want to know who killed Amber?”

“I already know.” She turned her contemptuous gaze on me. “You did. With your nosing around. Just like you’re doing now. Digging up things that should stay buried.”

“Mrs. Sinclair, someone murdered your daughter—”

“And you think Larry’s pity donation is connected to it? Don’t be stupid.”

“A teacher doesn’t have thirty thousand dollars to just drop on someone else.”

“Maybe he likes to save.” She ground out the cigarette. “The money showed up in my account, okay? I don’t know how or why, but I don’t care. I need out of this town, and it’ll help.”

“If the money was from his family,” I said. “There’s no way they’d be happy about the way he spent it.”

She stood. “Get out of my house. Next time, I’m calling the cops.”

✦ ✦ ✦

“Have you lost your mind?”

I turned down the volume of the hands-free phone app in the SUV.

“No, Nancy, but—”

“You have information on Amber and Larry’s murders, and your solution was to go to May Sinclair instead of me?”

“I thought—”

“No, you didn’t,” she interrupted. “And I’m disappointed.”

Ouch.

“You’re not a dumb kid, Maggie. Why would you do such a foolhardy thing?”

“It’s just Mrs. Sinclair and—”

“Get your butt home,” she said. “And don’t go near May, again.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to hear it. Do you even realize you’re opening up the department to a lawsuit, not to mention opening me up to a personal lawsuit?”

“No,” I said, contrite. “I didn’t.”

“May Sinclair’s a lot of things, and vengeful is on the top of the list. No one crosses her and gets away with it. You know she’s suing the church. Did you know she’s suing the reverend’s estate?”

“I didn’t know he had an estate.” I looked over at Serge.

He shrugged. “I didn’t know either. Not like he and I ever talked.”

“Stay away from May,” said Nancy. “Get home and—”

“And what, play video games? Lucien is stalking my family, a soul-eater might have my mom and dad, and you want me to stay home and do homework?” I didn’t add the other stuff, that Lucien was coming for her, too.

“I know, kid,” she sighed. “And we have eyes on Savour. He won’t get near you. Maggie, you need to be smart about this. Don’t let grief cloud your decisions.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Go home,” she said again, her voice soft. “I’ll talk to May. We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see me. “Got it.” I signed off and turned to Serge. “Did you know the reverend had money?”

“It makes sense. Look at how he dressed.”

“You never knew your grandparents, right?”

Serge nodded. “It was just the reverend and my mother.”

“So, if they came from money—”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said.

“But maybe there would be evidence somewhere?”

“Probably the lawyer’s office.” He frowned. “Why? What are you thinking?”

“Principal Larry gave money to Mrs. Sinclair, but we don’t know where he got the money from.”

“You thought it was his family,” he said.

I waved away his words. “I was just doing that to see Mrs. Sinclair’s reaction. Can you imagine his family giving him money to do anything? He worked as a principal and look at his clothes and car. If he had money, he would’ve lived better.”

“You think the money came from the reverend?”

“Maybe. But if their families didn’t have money, then where did all the cash for Mrs. Sinclair come from?”

“You’re talking about the reverend stealing from the church.”

“You’re the one who told me that, months ago.”

“Except no one’s said anything.”

“Because he’s dead. His entire family’s been wiped out. Plus, there’s fallout for the church. If the reverend had been stealing from them for years, then they’d be liable.”

Serge’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Sinclair’s suing the church.”

I nodded. “If she went ahead with the suit, then they’d have to open the books.”

“Which means a whole bunch of people could be in trouble,” said Serge.

“Right. They may not have stolen with the reverend, but they covered it up.”

“And the principal uses the stolen funds to…buy off Amber and Mrs. Sinclair?” asked Serge.

“Maybe, or maybe he was doing something else, just him and Amber. Either way, someone from the church found out he had access to the money.”

“And that someone went to the school to kill Larry, but why kill Amber?”

“Maybe for the same reason the soul-eater took my dad’s soul. If Mrs. Sinclair’s incapacitated with grief, then maybe she doesn’t go ahead with the lawsuit.”

“We should tell Nancy all of this,” he said. “It might get us out of the dog house.”

“Text her. I’m going to get us home. Ten bucks says she’s timing my commute.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Tammy’s minivan was in the driveway when I got home. She and Bruce were in the kitchen with Craig and Nell.

“I got to thinking,” said Tammy.

“Always a dangerous thing,” murmured Nell.

I elbowed her into silence.

“I thought if we could access the other side directly, through a psychic, maybe we could get some answers.”

“There’s a bunch of them in town,” said Bruce. “And one of them found us at the market. She said she knew we’d be there, and that we’d be the key to helping with the supernatural stuff going on.”

“Isn’t that amazing?” asked Tammy. “She knew we’d be there—”

“Talk about a genuine psychic, right?” said Bruce.

“Were you there handing out the flyers for your club?” Nell asked.

“Yeah,” said Bruce. “And she—her name’s Cora—said she knew we’d be there, doing that.”

“Amazing,” said Nell. “Talk about psychic power.”

I leaned into her and whispered, “Could you try not to enjoy this so much?”

She didn’t stop grinning. “These two are better than cable and streaming combined.”

“Plus, Cora’s a palm reader,” said Tammy. “Things are so crazy for you, Mags. She can read the lines on your hand. Maybe she can tell you when it’ll all end and then you’ll know.” She squeezed my hand. “You’ll have an end date.”

“Uh—”

Nell whispered, “What’s more astonishing? Tammy having all those thoughts in rapid succession, or being ambushed by a plan for you to talk to a so-called psychic?”

I elbowed her in the ribs. “That’s really nice of you, Tammy, but I’m not sure—”

“Great!” Tammy dragged me to the table. “Let’s start. She gave us her email and cell number, and said to text as soon as we were ready.”

Tammy and Bruce looked so happy, and I had no idea how to shut them down. I’d been dealing with enough hateful people, I wasn’t prepared to lose two friends.

“Maybe we should do a quick check of her,” said Craig. “Just in case.”

“Already done,” said Bruce. “We went to her website and checked out her bio and testimonials, and we checked the consumer sites too. There’s nothing but positive comments about her.”

“Nothing but positive comments?” I asked. “No one hits a hundred percent. Show me her website.”

Bruce took out his phone.

“Wait,” I said. “Not her site. Pull up her name in the search engine.”

He did, and handed his cell to me. I went to the images section and scrolled through her photos.

“Why are you suspicious?” asked Tammy.

“Because it’s too convenient. She finds you handing out flyers on the supernatural, so she targets you for her con, butters you up by saying you’re key to the investigation—” I glanced up at them. “—And of course you are, but still…did you tell her you knew me?”

They glanced at each other.

“I should have known it was too good to be true,” said Bruce. “We just wanted to help.”

I stopped on an image and turned the phone to face them. “You did. Look at this. See the guy next to her?”

“Who is it?” asked Tammy.

“A very bad guy,” I said. “We need to get this to Nancy.”

“Cora chick was psychic after all,” said Nell. “Tammy and Bruce just helped with the investigation.”

“Yeah,” I said as I opened the web page and texted the link to Nancy. “Too bad she’s not psychic enough to see they were going to land her in jail.”