I was working through a whole lot of complicated emotions—ranging from just kiss Jack to cancel that date to what on earth were you thinking?—when Mom called.
As usual, she was already talking when I answered the phone. “. . . can’t put it over there. Tell them to take it around the back.”
“Hello?”
“Oh, Harlow, good, you finally answered. I need you to come to the bakery to collect some food to take home. Your cat is here too. I found him in the pizza oven again. Did you talk to him?”
I heard Adams in the background saying, No, I wasn’t.
“Can’t you guys bring it home? I’m sort of working here.”
“No, Freya and I are going straight to a business seminar after work and Ro has yoga. I need you to come to the Big Pie and pick up the food and your cat as soon as possible, please.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll come now.”
I checked the time and saw that it was already quite late. Between the therapy session with John, following Fusion Swan through the town, witnessing a drug deal, following him to Zero Bend’s house, coming back here, researching and writing an article, and then having Jack visit me, the day had vanished. I took one more look at my article and decided I’d wait a day or two. Maybe I could find out some more information. At least that’s what I told myself. The truth is that most of the time the Harlot Bay Reader consists of puff piece reporting on new shops opening, parks being revitalized, and houses being repainted. Apart from Holt Everand’s murder, this was probably the first time I’d really written anything of substance, and I was a little nervous about letting it out to meet the world.
I locked up and then drove over to the Big Pie Bakery. It’s only four streets away. Big Pie is a moderate-size cafe/bakery with chairs outside for sidewalk dining. When I was within two streets of it, I smelled the delicious food. Some days it was cinnamon sugar drifting over this town in a cloud, sweet and delicious. Other days you could smell crusty bread, fresh from the oven. Sometimes it was pizza.
At this time of day the cafe was mostly empty. There were a few tourists eating snacks or donuts and drinking coffee. In another hour the bakery would close. I pulled up around the rear and went in the back entrance to find my mother and two aunts having a very serious conversation about paint colors.
“Rustic orange gives a warm, comforting feel. We’re restoring the mansion, but we’re not going to be turning it into a palace. We don’t want people to be scared away,” Mom said.
“No, the blue is more inviting,” Freya said. She was kneading dough, and I’m not sure she’d realized that it had probably had enough kneading by now.
Ro turned toward me.
“I think we need to go with bright colors. Make ourselves stand out. Everyone else in town already uses the same style of paint. We need to be different. What do you think?”
I put up my hands.
“I have no opinion on the matter. I’m only here to pick up a cat and whatever baked goods you want to give me.”
“Chicken,” Mom muttered.
Ro pointed to a couple of boxes sitting on the bench.
“We need these taken home and put in the pantry. Not the refrigerator. I repeat, they need to go in the pantry. Okay?”
I went over to the boxes and opened one. Inside were delicious cinnamon donuts sprinkled in sugar.
“Understood. Pantry, not refrigerator.”
I closed the box, but they must have seen me licking my lips.
“These are not for eating. If you want something else, although I don’t think you should have it, there’s food out front,” Mom said, looking me up and down.
I took a look down at my hips and general shape. Perhaps I shouldn’t have a donut.
Counterpoint: have a donut.
Decision made after that well thought-out argument, I went into the front of the bakery and snagged a cinnamon donut. I’ve eaten Big Pie donuts many times and I never get sick of them. The dough is light and just sweet enough. There is a slight crispness to it and the cinnamon sugar is perfectly spiced. The mothers swear they don’t use magic to bake, but we’ve all felt it when we’ve been in the kitchen. It permeates the Big Pie Bakery. I went out to the kitchen to find Adams sitting next to the boxes, sniffing at them.
“And that includes cats!” Freya said.
“I was just looking,” Adams said.
“Okay, buddy, come with me.”
I picked up the boxes and took them out to my car. Adams followed. I put the boxes in the back and Adams sat in the front seat. I called out goodbye to my mom and aunts and then drove home.
It was kind of perfect timing that my mom and Freya were going to a business seminar tonight. That meant they wouldn’t be at home to catch us sneaking out to follow Ro. I’d concocted a whole plan based around us going out and had carefully prepared the lies. Now they weren’t needed.
I drove home, chatting with Adams about cat-related matters. This included topics such as: why wasn’t he allowed to sleep in the pizza oven? Donuts are a good food for cats. Do we have any cheese at home? I told him he isn’t allowed to sleep in the pizza oven because of cat hair on pizza (but I’m very clean!), donuts aren’t really good for cats (but you eat them!) and yes, we have cheese, and I would get him some when we arrived home.
I pulled up at the front of the mansion and took the boxes in through the house and into the pantry. The place was empty. Mom, Freya and Ro were still at work and Aunt Cass was nowhere to be seen. She was probably off selling illegal fireworks or brewing her own liquor or something devious like that. I put the baked goods in the pantry, pondered stealing one, decided not to, and then drove down to the east wing of the house. I gave Adams some cheese and was wondering whether to tell my cousins of my plans to visit Zero Bend alone when they got home.
“Okay, quick meal and then we are ready for Ro to come home so we can follow her,” Molly said immediately.
“Do you think this is a good idea?” Luce asked.
“Of course it’s a good idea. You need intelligence on your enemy,” Molly replied. I silently rolled my eyes behind her back. If she kept going to the library in an effort to appear smart to Oliver, she was really going to be quoting a lot of random things at us.
I told them of the good news that my mom and Freya were going directly to a business seminar in town.
We had a quick dinner—reheated burritos that we had made in bulk a couple of weeks ago and frozen. While we were eating, Ro pulled up at the house and rushed inside.
“Operation Nighthawk is a go,” Molly said, peering out the front window.
“Operation Nighthawk?”
“It’s important to give your strategies important-sounding names. That way people take them seriously.”
“Okay, operation Very Fancy Mustache is a go.” Luce giggled as we joined Molly at the window. If history was any guide, we had about ten minutes before Aunt Ro would leave. She always rushed home, had a quick shower and something to eat, and then rushed out again. As we waited, we quickly went over our plan.
“Wait till she is halfway down the hill and then we follow,” Molly said.
“What if she gets away?” Luce asked.
“She won’t. She always drives really slow going down that hill in the dark.”
“We’ll follow through town, making sure we stay far enough back that she doesn’t see. Although it’s not likely she will see us. We’ll follow her, and she’ll either drive to a yoga class or drive to a love affair. Harlow, make sure to bring your camera,” Molly said.
“My camera? Isn’t it getting a little serious? We’re not collecting evidence for a criminal trial.”
“Yes, we are. In the past, when we have accused them of anything, they’ve made up any kind of answer to get out of it. She can’t argue her way out of a photograph of her walking into Sheriff Hardy’s house.”
“I don’t know, is it going too far?”
Molly didn’t answer me.
“There she goes,” Luce said, tapping the window.
We snuck outside and into Molly’s car. It’s a bit smaller than mine, but also a few years newer, and it doesn’t have that whole dying-on-a-hill problem. Molly drove.
We waited a minute to ensure that Ro was down the hill and then followed. As Molly had predicted, she was driving incredibly slow in the dark. We followed her through town, making sure we kept well back. It was actually quite easy thanks to the Butter Festival’s extra traffic around to hide us. We followed her through the center of town, past the fountain and the town hall, and out the other side into the suburbs.
Ro definitely wasn’t going to a yoga class.
“Does anyone know where Sheriff Hardy lives?” Molly asked.
“I think it’s over here somewhere. Doesn’t he live on a street that has the name of a tree? Like acacia? Or gum?” Luce said.
As with my pursuit of Fusion Swan earlier in the day, as soon as we got out of the main part of town, we were the only car in sight. Molly made sure to stay back, but I think it would have been pretty obvious that we were following Ro if she’d bothered to turn around.
“There, quick, she’s turning,” Luce said, pointing. By the time we reached the same corner and turned around it, Ro’s car was gone. Molly pulled to a stop at the curb and turned off the headlights.
“Don’t move,” she whispered.
“Why?” I whispered back.
“She might have seen us. She stopped so she can catch us.”
“Shouldn’t we get out of here, then, so that doesn’t happen?”
“No, that’ll look even more suspicious.”
“But if she catches us, won’t that look suspicious?” I asked.
Right that moment there was an enormous thud from the trunk of the car. We all screamed and turned around, but there was no one there.
“What was that?” Luce said. She reached under the front seat where Molly was sitting and pulled out a short baseball bat.
“What’s that for?”
“In case there’s some monster out there about to get us. It could be the soul sucker.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Although, what were the chances? We’re driving around following our aunt and the soul sucker just happens to stumble across us?
There was another thud from the trunk.
“Okay, we have to get out and see what that is. We’re witches; we can do this,” I said.
“Or we could just drive away,” Molly said.
“What if the soul sucker is in the trunk? Then we take it home and there’s just the three of us a mile from town.”
This was getting really bad. If we kept talking, we were going to scare ourselves stupid. I jumped out of the car.
“Let’s go.”
Molly and Luce reluctantly followed. Molly forced Luce out in front of her, holding the bat. We crept around the back of the car. I was ready to cast a spell if I had to. Molly mouthed I’m going to open it and pointed at Luce to get into position. I stood on the other side of her so I wouldn’t get hit by the bat and got ready to cast a binding spell. I could feel my heart thudding, and my breath in my lungs seemed to rasp abnormally loud. Everything around us had gone quiet and it seemed the night itself was closing in. Molly reached forward and slipped the key into the lock incredibly slowly.
A silent countdown.
3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
The trunk sprung open and the interior light glared out. Something rose up like a viper.
“Argh!” Luce shouted with her eyes closed and swung like crazy.
There was a flash of light and the bat broke apart in her hands.
“You stop that right now.”
The monster in the trunk was . . . Aunt Cass.
“Someone help me out.”
I let the binding spell slip away. I held out my hand and helped Aunt Cass out of the trunk. As she climbed out, I saw that she wasn’t alone in there. There was also a box that contained glass test tubes and flasks and what was clearly a Bunsen burner.
“Is that yours?” I asked.
Aunt Cass turned around and slammed the trunk shut.
“None of your business. What are you doing out here?”
“What are we doing here? Why were you in Molly’s trunk?”
“I asked you first.”
“So? We’re out for a drive and that’s perfectly normal. An old lady hiding in the trunk is definitely not. So you can’t use the ‘I asked you first’ defense.”
“Who are you following?”
“Aunt Ro,” Luce said. “We think she’s having a love affair with Sheriff Hardy.”
Aunt Cass just looked at the three of us and then shook her head.
“Taking your snitching to a whole new level, I see. Now you’re out collecting evidence of things people are doing.”
“It’s not like that. We just think that Ro and the sheriff might be together and we were curious,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter, Harlow. Let’s just go back home,” Molly said.
Aunt Cass stomped away to sit in the front seat.
“What you mean, it doesn’t matter? Are you not the least bit curious what Aunt Cass was doing hiding in the trunk?”
“Does it matter? Do you think she’s really going to tell us? We’ve lost Mom. Let’s just go home before this gets any worse.”
“I agree with Molly. If Ro caught us now, we would have to explain what we were doing here with Aunt Cass.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Normally my cousins would be first in line to ask Aunt Cass what exactly she was doing. And now they were backing away? Something was going on.
“Fine, we’ll go home. But I’m going to find out what that Bunsen burner is about.”
“She’s not going to tell you,” Luce said. We gathered the shattered pieces of baseball bat and then drove home in silence. We all knew if we started talking, the conversation would merely turn to why we were snitching and snooping. We arrived at the front door and Aunt Cass went inside without a word, taking her box of glassware with her. Then we drove down to our end of the house.
I turned on my cousins as soon as we were indoors.
“Seriously, what has gotten into the two of you? We just had an old lady in our trunk and some highly suspicious glassware which she just took inside, and there’s not a single question?”
“It’s our new strategy. She always lies to us anyway and so do our mothers, so why fight it? I think half the time she gets involved in things just so she could possibly get caught. It’s kind of fun for her,” Molly said.
I hadn’t considered that, but still this was weird.
“You should stop reading those war books. You’re getting all kinds of crazy ideas.”
I made us all hot cocoa and tried to get a bit more out of them, but they foiled me at every turn. By the end of my drink, I was convinced there was definitely something going on. I was going to figure out what it was.
I went to bed and started listing the mysteries that had piled up on top of me: a dead sculptor, possible murderous competitors, a drug-dealing agent who was profiting from this, and Jack, who I’d seen meeting with someone I was fairly sure was a drug dealer. And now this? My aunt hiding in the trunk of a car and refusing to tell us why. It was no small wonder that I didn’t go completely mad sometimes.