Page 54 of Fresh Old Bounties

I ended the call and faced Ian. “Grandma died of a heart attack.”

But my relief died as fast as a boulder trying to fly. I scowled even as he gave me a knowing look. “But if someone used dark magic to provoke one, a human doctor wouldn’t know. Did your partner use dark magic?”

“Ex-partner. And I don’t know. I only discovered these”—he gestured toward the box and the folder—“after his death.”

“Why would he keep files about his illegal jobs? Anyone could find them and nail him to the wall with them.”

“He was old school. He liked to keep notes.”

I knelt on the rug and turned Grandma’s folder my way to check the contents again. The date printed on the back of the photographs gave me pause.

“These were taken a year before her death.” I poked at the numbers.

Ian leaned forward to read them, and another thought occurred to me. “Did you ever follow up on the people in the other folders?”

“Some,” he said. “But there was nothing to be done. Duncan was already dead.”

Duncan. It was the first time I’d heard him mention his ex-partner’s name. Could I do some digging of my own without Ian knowing about it? Would Dru know anyone in the bounty hunters?

Later, though. Returning Grandma’s reputation to its innate state of goodness came first.

“Someone paid him to spy on Grandma then…nothing?” I checked the page with the locations and dates. “It doesn’t seem like he followed her for too long. A week at most.”

“The bounty must’ve ended.”

“Why?”

Ian shrugged. “Whoever hired him might’ve changed their mind. They could’ve hired someone else or run out of funds.”

I didn’t like the thought that there might be another hitman out there with Grandma’s bounty. I tapped Grandma’s headshot clipped to the cover. “Can I keep this?”

“You can keep it all.”

As usual, Ian’s straightforwardness was a shot to the heart. Of warmth this time rather than irritation. “The whole box?”

“Don’t press your luck.”

I grinned. “So, someone hired your ex-partner to spy on Grandma, then rescinded the job? Or maybe whoever it was simply wanted a report of Grandma’s daily goings and your ex-partner gave them that? But why?” I got up and began pacing again. “Could it have something to do with this spellbook business? It seems too coincidental.”

“It only seems coincidental because of the file. This happened twenty years ago. That’s a long time if someone wanted your grandmother’s spellbook.”

I followed his train of thought. “And if someone had wanted Grandma’s spellbook back then, they’d have hired your ex-partner to steal it, not to follow her around.” I spun toward him. “Unless!”

“Unless?” He sounded wary, as if I was in the habit of sprouting wild theories and plans.

He should know better by now. All my theories and plans were sound and foolproof.

“Unless,” I continued, “all this following around was prep work for the actual break-in, but the bounty got canceled before he got to do it, so he cut his losses and returned home instead of going through with it.”

My experience of being around Ian in his more “professional mode” had told me that bounty hunters did the job they had been hired for with little deviance.

“That’s possible,” he admitted.

See? Foolproof. “But why? Grandma would’ve never practiced dark magic.”

“You saw her perform magic?”

I shrugged, unwilling to admit to the haziness of most of my memories of her. “Of sorts.”

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