Page 57 of Fresh Old Bounties

“Username?”

“String of letters. I don’t remember. It’s all anonymous. It’s on my phone.”

“Anonymous my ass,” Dru muttered. “Preston is more like it.”

“And where is your phone?” Ian asked, unfazed.

The robber glared at Ian but said nothing.

Dru waved her sharp nails. A couple of cute horn ends poked out through her curly hair. “Sharpened this week and eager to go for a drive.”

Rufus backed her up with a growl, eager to get in on the action.

“In an old mailbox,” the man said with a growl. “Pink house in Mills.”

I snapped my fingers with recognition. “The cute, old one that needs a new roof and some weeding?”

“Yes,” he gritted out.

“I know where it is,” I told Ian with a triumphant smile.

“We all do,” Dru said dryly. “We’ve lived here longer than you.”

Mark let out a mean chuckle while Ian asked for the password to the robber’s phone. I chose not to reciprocate with a scorching remark right that moment. But in two days, when it came to me in the middle of the night? That would be another story.

“Why did you think it’s the wrong spellbook?” I patted Grandma’s book, still lying on the counter. The familiar touch remained as comforting as always, and the sensation lifted a huge weight from my shoulders.

There was no way on Mother’s green earth that Grandma had been a dark magic user or a willing participant in keeping a dark magic spellbook.

It wasn’t in her nature, just like it wasn’t in mine.

“I was given a description of the interior,” the man spit out.

Interesting. “What was the description?”

“It should be filled with alchemist symbols.”

“Say what?” I asked, blankly.

“Alchemist symbols,” he repeated, louder and slower. “You know, that crap to turn stuff into gold and all that. I looked them up online.”

“Why would a witch’s spellbook contain—” Oh. Ooh. If someone thought they could convert lead into gold, dark magic would be a good way to do it.

“If there was a spellbook containing the secret to turn things into gold,” Ian asked in his best bland tone, “you don’t think it’d be better guarded?”

“It’s not my job to check if it works or not,” the man replied. “My job was to get it, that’s it.”

From his tone of voice, he didn’t believe the conversion was possible either, but someone obviously did. And if I was right, and this was the same reason Ian’s ex-partner had been hired to check out Grandma, why the twenty-year wait?

I tested my legs, found they’d returned to solid consistency, and pushed myself off the stool. “Time to go.”

They all turned to me.

“Where?” Dru asked.

My gaze flicked to the robber. It felt rude admitting I wanted to get his phone and dig around his contacts for whoever had hired him.

Ian saved me the awkwardness by addressing Mark and Shane. “We won’t take long. Can you handle it?”

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