Page 62 of Top Secret Vampire

“I can’t fathom any of this.” My voice broke the silence. The wine suddenly tasted bitter. “The footage, the impersonation. Someone’s gone to great lengths to make me look guilty, and I still can’t understand why they're after me. And my aunt! I can’t believe she came to the station, that she was determined to defend me, though that’s the one good thing in all this.”

“Maybe she’s always carried a soft spot for you in her heart, but she hadn’t known how to express it. Give her a call. Go to lunch with her sometime. You might be surprised by what you have to talk about with each other.”

I gave him a smile. “I think I will.” My smile soon fell when I thought about my situation.

Wolf scanned the room like he was trying to pull clues from the air. His dark hair caught the light, shining like the wings of a raven. “Let's go through the suspects and possible motives again.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Maybe we’ll think of something new.”

“Good idea.” I leaned further back into the couch, the cushion swallowing me. “Who first?”

“Beverly.” He said my aunt’s name quickly, like he didn’t expect her to be the right call, but I guessed we had to be thorough. “Your aunt fits, at least personality-wise. She doesn't like sharing your mom with you.”

I sighed. “She wasn’t thrilled when I moved back, that's for sure. On more than one occasion, she's subtly tried to push me to return to New York. But would she frame me and then slam into the police station hell-bent on freeing me? Besides, she doesn’t look like me, and she can’t do magic.”

“I think we can move her to the bottom of the list.” He stared forward, frowning. “I still believe all this is connected. Has anyone in your family ever hinted they could do witchcraft? You know what I mean. A person who had uncanny precognition. Someone who could almost make something come true because they wished for it. It might appear as a healthy dose of luck.”

I paused. “I don't think so. My mom never mentioned anyone like that, not even in my dad's family, and she's talked about him quite a bit as well.”

“Which doesn't mean your family is devoid of magic but does draw suspicion away from your aunt.”

We fell silent again before Wolf swiped his fingers over the screen. “Wilber Blight. Any odd occurrences from him or his family that you're aware of?”

I shrugged. “After what happened, I avoided him.”

“You reported him to the principal.” Wolf’s hands clenched, though his voice remained calm. “Men like him don’t forget things like that.”

I remembered how Wilber had eyed me when he stopped here to campaign. “He’s got a reputation to protect. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to discredit me. If I was ruined but spoke up, no one would believe me.”

“That's motive right there. If he's without magical abilities himself, he could've hired someone from out of town to create the video and plan the other incidents.”

I nodded, the thought chilling me. “I hate thinking that he’s capable of something so elaborate, but he’s slimy enough to try anything if he thought I was a threat to his reputation in this community.”

“He's still on the short list.” Wolf marked something on his phone and then swiped us to the next person. “Tracy.”

The moment her name left his lips, my fingers tightened on my wine glass. To think I used to trust that woman. “Where do I even start?”

He didn’t respond, just nodded as if to say,go on.

“You saw it for yourself. She hated that I moved back to Mystic Harbor and planted roots with people who know me. Even when she was my assistant, there was always this weird vibe like she thought I only needed her because I was isolated, working alone in my New York apartment.”

“And now?”

I bit my lip. “I saw her for who she truly is the day we visited Monsters, PI. She never supported me moving back. Now, I don’t think she ever believed in me. I didn’t realize—” My voice trembled, my bitterness bleeding through. “She hacked my accounts. Or I believe she did. Maybe she's responsible for everything else. Like you suggested with Wilber, if she can't domagic herself, she could hire someone to do it for her. Why didn't I see who she really was? I trusted her for years.”

“She saw her chance,” Wolf said. “She must feel entitled to your success. Perhaps she thought it was dependent on you relying on her. Anything that threatened that narrative . . . well, here we are.”

“She hated that I was finally at a place in my life where I didn’t consult her about everything.”

Wolf raised an eyebrow. “Someone so focused on control, on sabotaging the instant she’s no longer involved, could easily escalate their behavior.”

I swallowed and nodded. Tracy as a suspect made perfect sense. “She’s definitely high on the list.”

We continued through the others, Wolf quickly running a finger down the last few names. “Flint Prospect, an old mentor of yours. Now a rival?”

A humorless laugh scraped its way up my throat. “Something like that. He liked taking credit for my early success; that’s for sure.”

“And now that he’s struggling to hold onto that when he must realize that your success today is due to your own efforts.”

“He works with birds, so he could've sent a trained seagull to attack me.”

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