CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I knew Pete was right about there being limits to the help I could give, but it didn’t make me feel much better. Although now that I thought about it, he would be the perfect witch to talk to about a lot of this other stuff. I trusted Pete implicitly. We’d hit it off the first time we’d met and over the years he’d become a good friend. I knew I could count on him to be straight up with me.

I walked slowly to my shop with my muffin and coffee, but I didn’t have much appetite. All the telephone poles along the way had the same photo. I wondered if Ginny had done it on her own, or if Nicole’s family had helped. Or were they willing to believe that she’d just up and left a life that had become overwhelming?

I needed to talk to Ginny. I’d get the shop opened up and once Syd or Josie came in, I’d go to the deli and find her. I’d just flipped the sign to open when I heard the bell on my shop door jangle. Figuring it was one of them, I offered a greeting without turning around. “Morning.”

“Vi. I need your help. Did you hear?”

Not Syd or Josie. I turned and saw Ginny standing there. She looked like crap, like she’d been up all night. I felt sorry for her. She’d been through enough lately. Mazzy had been one of her friends too, and I knew she’d taken that whole thing pretty hard. To now have another friend go missing ... I nodded. “Nicole. Yes, I saw the poster. I was coming to see you as soon as someone got here to take over.”

She came over and flung her arms around me, burying her face in my shoulder. “Can you help find her?”

I wished I knew how. I patted her back awkwardly. “What happened?” I asked. “When did you find out she was missing?”

“Her mother called me yesterday. But I was already worried. We talked to the cops yesterday afternoon.” She swiped furiously at her eyes. “Then she was supposed to be at the council meeting last night. I heard she didn’t make it. That was the final straw for me. There’s nothing that would’ve kept her from that—unless something really is wrong. Nicole took her job really seriously.”

I nodded. “I was there. Sylvia Townsend covered for her. Who is that?”

“Her new boss. But they’ve known each other for a long time. I guess her mother called the office yesterday and talked to Sylvia. Sylvia said she hadn’t been in since last week so her mother called me. I talked to her early Monday, but that was the last time. And no one in her family has talked to her since then either. That’s not like her.” Ginny turned back to me, and her eyes were wide and wet with tears. “The cops aren’t taking this seriously and I’m so frustrated. Something’s wrong. We have to do something!”

I grabbed her hand and led her over to my chair that I used for consults. “Okay. Calm down and come sit. She mentioned she was ending a relationship. Had she done it yet, or was that still in process?”

Ginny made a face. “It was done. She’s been trying to break up with him for ages and she finally did it a few weeks ago. He didn’t take it well. Vi, he’s ... not a nice person. But she didn’t tell a lot of people. Definitely not her family. You understand?”

I understood. No wonder I’d gotten such a strong sense of fear emanating off of her. Nicole had just left an abusive relationship. Without a lot of support. “Would she have just taken off to get away from him?”

Ginny shook her head emphatically. “She would’ve told me, at least. And called in sick to work or explained or something. She was happy to get that new job. She wouldn’t have just stopped showing up after a few weeks.” She held up a hand and ticked off points on her fingers. “Her phone is shut off. She never shuts her phone off. I have a key to her place, so I went over there yesterday. Roxie, her cat, was there alone. She’d never leave without Roxie. And she’d never just leave her without food. Her bowl was empty!”

I understood that. Monty was my whole life. Everything I did was with him in mind. And now I had two babies to care for, although Xander seemed a bit more ... self-sufficient than Monty. I asked the only question that made sense while I processed all this. “Where’s Roxie now?”

“I took her home. But all Nicole’s stuff was at her place. Phone charger, her purse, her favorite jacket. I’m telling you, Vi, something bad happened. And I feel like it has to do with him.”

“Does ’he’ have a name?” I asked.

“Chris Strand. He lives in town too. He runs a contracting firm.”

A lawyer and a contractor? Seemed like an odd match. “So what did the cops say?”

“Her mother and I talked to them. It was one guy, actually, and he didn’t seem that interested. Plus it’s hard because her parents ... liked Chris. They didn’t know. And she didn’t want to tell them what he was really like. She thought it would make her look weak if they knew. And stupid. She was a lawyer, you know? Those things don’t happen to lawyers.”

“Oh, Ginny.” I sank down next to her. “How dangerous was this guy? Was he violent? Did he threaten her?”

“He wouldn’t leave her alone. She stopped talking about it a while ago. Said she was trying to put it all behind her. I don’t know if he was still bothering her, honestly. I told the cop about her place, though. That all her stuff was there. The cop actually said, ’Don’t you girls change purses all the time?’ I wanted to punch him in the face.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t even know. Older white guy.”

So not Gabe Merlino. That, at least, was a relief. Gabe was a good cop, and I was already thinking about calling him. “Did you at least give him Chris’s name?”

She nodded. “And then Nicole’s mother started talking about how upset he’ll be when he finds out. That she tried to call him too but hadn’t been able to get a hold of him. She actually agreed with the cop that they might be together. It’s like she’s almost willing to accept the story that Nicole took off so she doesn’t have to think of ... the alternative.”

I studied Ginny. She looked incredibly distraught. “Ginny. You said she had a lot going on, just started a new job, broke up with someone she’d been with for—how long?”

Ginny wrinkled her nose. “Too long. Three years.”

“Okay. So that’s stressful even if she was the one who initiated it, and especially if he was making it hard for her. Do you think maybe she did just go away? Even for a short vacation? And maybe the pet sitter was late?”

“No.” She said it so emphatically it startled me. Glancing around, she leaned in closer and said, “When I went to her house I got a bad feeling.”

“Bad like what?”

“I touched her purse and got a ... vision.”

There it was—the elephant in the room. My room, at least. Ginny was a witch and had powers too. So why wasn’t she taking advantage of that? “So what did you see? Did you get a vision of Chris? Like, doing something to her? Is that what your powers are—you can see the future? Or is it the past?” I was still so curious about how all this worked. I’d wondered why she hadn’t used her powers to help Nicole. Why did she need my crystals in the first place?

But I wasn’t sure who had what kind of powers. Like, did everyone get the same basic ones and then develop special skillsets from there? Was it like college—you decided what you were interested in and chose a major? Another thing I should’ve asked Blake, but he’d been too busy lecturing me.

That made me feel cranky again so I pushed the thought away.

Meantime, Ginny was clearly trying to figure out how to explain what she’d seen, squirming in her seat a bit. “It wasn’t like that. I only wish I could ...” she trailed off. “Anyway, it was like this weird vibe of... sorrow or something. I didn’t see pictures, or faces. So maybe vision wasn’t the right word?”

“Sorrow,” I repeated. “Like Nicole’s sorrow?”

She lifted her shoulders, looking at me helplessly. “I guess. Who else’s would it be? I was at her place, touching her stuff. But was it sorrow because she wasn’t there, or sorrow because she was in trouble, or what?”

“I don’t know. Can you use your powers to find out?” I asked pointedly.

She frowned. “Can’t you?”

“I’m trying! But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of brand new at this.” I got up and paced the room, nervous energy getting the better of me. “I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. I want to help her. All I’ve been thinking about is helping her. But I’m failing miserably.” I turned back to her. “So really. Tell me about your powers. Maybe we can put our heads together. You know, like that old cartoon, Wonder Twin powers, activate!?”

Clearly she didn’t know that one because she stared blankly at me. “It’s not that easy for me,” she said. “I haven’t used my powers in a while so I don’t know if they’re any good anymore. I’ve been ... living here for a long time and my mom isn’t a witch. She doesn’t like to talk about that part of our family. My dad is part witch and tries to plug me in where he can but she hates it. He was the one who got me the job doing the ... specialized maid service.”

The witchy cleanups. Josie had mentioned that Ginny would’ve been her pick to clean up the Mazzy mess in my store, if it hadn’t been her friend. Not that I understood what any of that entailed. And it didn’t sound like it would help much here, unless someone had kidnapped Nicole and was making her clean their house.

“Okay,” I said, trying to muster up all the patience I could. “So what do you want to do?”

“We have to find her, of course,” she said, like I was an idiot to whom she had to speak slowly.

“Okay,” I said again. “Any suggestions on how to do that without the benefit of ... added insight? I think the cops are our best bet here. We need to get them to take it seriously.”

“How? We tried that.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “They don’t want to help. And if they won’t help then we need to figure out something else.”

“Before we go there, I’m going to try Sergeant Merlino. See if he can help.”

Ginny sniffed. “You trust him to care?”

“I do.”

“Fine, then. What else?”

“What do you mean, what else?”

“What else can you do?”

I frowned. “Not following.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “Come on, Vi. I know that you have pretty cool powers. That’s why I brought her to you in the first place.”

The girl at the Potions Cafe counter flashed in my mind. I heard you have the powers to, like, see into people souls. “Ginny, I just told you—”

The door to the shop banged open and Syd charged in, out of breath. “Sorry I’m late, Vi. Presley was giving me a hard time this morning and ... oh, hello. I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said when she saw Ginny. “I’ll be right out,” she said to me, then hurried out back.

“We’ll have to talk about this later,” I said to Ginny. I didn’t really want to talk about this with Syd around.

Ginny stood, looking so sad and lost that I felt even more guilty. “Sure. I’m sorry. I just ... want to help my friend.”

I squeezed her hand. “I know. Don’t worry about it. I’ll do everything I can, okay? Please let me know if you hear from her.”

Ginny nodded. “Thanks.” She turned to go, but I called her back and pressed a stone into her hand—a blue calcite. Like the one that had helped me the other night.

“Take this,” I said. “You’ll feel better.”

She examined it, then closed her fist around it. “Thanks, Vi.” She looked up at me, and I could see tears in her eyes. “I’m scared.”

I gave her a hug. I didn’t know what to say, because I was too.