Page 110 of Midnight Auto Parts

“I can’t imagine,” she drawled, snorting, then pressed a second cold bottle into my hand. “Go on.”

“I will take this water to him—” I huffed as I exited the wagon, “—but not for perverted reasons.”

“It’s not like you salivated until you ran out of drool and were forced to rehydrate.” Her eyes laughed at me. “Therefore, I would never assume you only wanted a fresh bottle of water as an excuse to allow you to ogle him from close-up.”

“You’re not fooling anyone.” I rolled my eyes at her. “You made that exact assumption.”

“And you’re a perverted water-bottle-toting ogler, but I was trying to be nice.”

A flush blasted into my cheeks as I spun on my heel and aimed for Kierce before our conversation drew his attention.

Gentle rustles in my wake piqued my curiosity, and I glanced back to find Josie had sent a sapling tree to follow me with itsbranches outspread to catch me if I wobbled over the uneven ground.

“You’re awake.” Kierce spotted me the second I reached the pit. “How do you feel?”

“Pissed off I left you to handle this on your own,” I grumbled. “My battery was slower to recharge this time.”

“You’re pushing too hard. A magical fix won’t help much longer. You need real sleep soon.”

“I’m not the only one.” I chuckled when the tree formed its roots into a set of stairs I took down to his level. “We’ve all been working overtime on the case. We’ll deserve a week’s vacation when we’re done.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“Water?” I forced him to take it then nudged him against the dirt wall. “It’s nice and cold.”

“I’m almost done.” He drank deep, the muscles in his neck flexing. “Two more.”

As I processed that, I recalled who else should have been helping. “Where are Keshawn and Tameka?”

“They don’t have long left together. I suggested they go eat then wait for us in Josie’s garden.”

“I offered to drive them. Just to make sure they don’t get lost,” Josie cut in, staring down at us. “But Kierce was allblah, blah, trust, blah, blah. He let them take a Swyft.”

The bone I had chosen tumbled from my fingers. “And youlistened?”

“What?” Josie sat on the rim, swinging her legs, looking like a kid again. “I can listen.”

“I’m aware youcan, I just didn’t know you everdid.”

“Oh.” She snapped her fingers. “That reminds me. The vanishing-car thing was driving Carter bonkers, so I asked the Ezells. Keshawn was the brains behind it. On nights when a drop-off was scheduled, she got her witchy BFF to cast a daylightspell to temporarily blind any other motorists to what happened next.”

“Weird that it banished Vi, but spells cast on someone other than their intended target can go awry.”

“The girl was in the woods that day, checking they hadn’t left evidence behind. You guys got too close to her hiding place, so she hit the area with a blast of light to conceal her escape. Maybe she panicked and used more oomph than usual?”

“Maybe.” I pursed my lips. “That doesn’t explain the disappearing trick.”

“Oh! You’ll love this part.” Her eyes glittered. “Keshawn used her gremlin magic to fold the car into a cube. A cube! Like one of those car-crusher things in the movies. Then carried it into the woods as far as she could get before the magic ran out and it unfolded to its normal size.” She winced. “Apparently, it’s a rare type of magic that her mother forbade her to practice because of how often young gremlins overestimate how much time they have left and end up crushed under whatever they’ve stolen.”

“Ah, the lure of the forbidden.”

“From there, Keshawn called gremlin friends to dismantle the vehicles and disappear them.”

“Clever,” I had to admit. “Kierce?” I noticed he had finished his drink. “Do you need me?”

“Yes,” he said too earnestly for the moment, then held out his hand and dropped a bone on my palm.

Using the technique he taught me during our first visit, I located a skull Kierce had flagged as the head of an incomplete skeleton. I checked to see if I held its missing piece. Nope. I moved on to the next and got lucky there. As it turned out, I didn’t have to rely on magic to tell me where to place it. The earth had created a cast that made it as simple as matching a final puzzle piece to the whole.

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