Page 36 of Real Fake Hauntings

It sure was. Now that I had a starting point, this pentagram matter was all but solved.

My first official witch case and my first Halloween in Olmeda. Oh, but I’d be remembering this holiday for a long time to come!

To my surprise, my excitement didn’t stop me from getting a great night’s sleep. Or perhaps that was the universe’s way of preparing me for a busy and exciting day of investigating and apprehending pentagram-drawing criminals.

I hummed to myself while I went through my morning routine, my mind working on how to identify the suspect. My sister’s romantic suspense books had told me the more evil stuff an UNSUB—unidentified subject—did, the higher the chances of them making a mistake. For all I knew, my UNSUB had already made a mistake overnight while trying to draw a fifth pentagram.

The thought put me in an even better mood.

Not that I approved of criminals doing criminal things, you understand, but one had to look for the silver linings.

Breakfast diet soda in hand and soul singing with joy, I bounded down the steps to the shop and turned on the lights, then stopped short.

Desmond Crane was lying on the hardwood floor. Still, immobile, and awfully pale.

TWELVE

One day before Halloween.

Desmond Crane. Lying immobile on my shop’s floor.

I took a few deep breaths.

Okay, Hope. Not the first time we’ve come across suspicious bodies in this building. No need to panic.

This all had a perfectly logical explanation just beyond my reach, but I’d eventually get there.

“Mr. Crane?” I asked tentatively.

Crane didn’t so much as twitch.

He lay parallel to the counter, dressed in a charcoal-gray suit. The stools had been moved aside to make enough space—he was one of those thick men that resembled tree trunks.

I approached and peered closer at his skin. He truly was very pale. And his lips held a familiar blue tint.

Experience told me this was a bad sign.

Reaching down, I shook his shoulder, then snatched my hand back and braced myself for him to snap up straight and scream at me.

Nothing happened.

No boo! or gotcha!

Only silence.

“Nothing is ever as bad as it appears,” I reminded myself. “There is always good to be found in every situation. Just because you can’t think of anything right now, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

Kneeling by Crane’s side, I tentatively put my fingers on his cold neck and awakened my magic.

Wake.

It tingled and reacted with his skin as the basic incantation attempted to take hold.

Good news: unlike all my previous experiences with dead people, this was not a ghost.

Bad news: Desmond Crane was most definitely dead.

Oh, boy.

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