Page 115 of Wicching Hour

“No, I’m not,” he growled.

“Well, you should be,” I shouted back, closing the door behind me.

Hernández and I sat down on a bench. It was a glorious day and for the first time in centuries, we didn’t have a sorcerer in the family and there was no demonic grimoire waiting to corrupt more. It was a good day.

“Rough night?” she asked, the corners of her serious mouth turning up.

I nodded. “Not in the way you mean, though. We found the sorcerer.” I shook my head. “It was a lot. Remind me to tell you someday when we have time. Suffice to say, the sorcerer, her demon, and the spell book are all gone. Unfortunately, so is my gran.”

Hernández sat up straight. “Arwyn, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have made a joke.”

I smiled, soaking up the rays. “Yes, you should have. You don’t relax and joke nearly enough. So, are you visiting because of the serial killer or the stalker?”

She scratched her nose. “Both, actually.”

I turned to her. “Did you get him?”

She knew I meant the killer. “I did. And, yes, he’s the cop you warned me about when I was here arresting our last serial killer.”

“I’d prefer not to think of them as ours,” I muttered.

She stretched out her legs, crossing them at the ankles. “Harding was recently suspended for two weeks because of far too many civilian complaints and then pulling his gun on you. Unfortunately, he seems to have used that time to amp up his issues with unnecessary force to begin stalking victims.

“The judge who presided over the botched trial witnessed his humiliation and therefore needed to be punished,” she continued. “The woman with the patio full of plants submitted a pretty damning complaint against him. My friend Gaby, with the floral couch, reported him for harassment and the repeated use of ethnic slurs. The man—Joel—didn’t fit the pattern. He wasn’t a woman of color.”

“The one who wanted money?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes. He worked part-time in records and did some IT stuff around the station. We discovered that the reason Harding’s complaints weren’t flagged earlier was because Joel was going into the system to delete complaints or to alter them so the civilian seemed like a crank. Those two carried the same prejudices, and Joel was more than happy to help his buddy Harding even the playing field, as they saw it.”

“Jeez.”

“Yep. Unfortunately for Joel, he started to ask for loans in a way that sounded very much like blackmail. So Harding’s in jail as we collect more damning evidence against him, and Joel’s in the morgue.” She lifted her face to the sun. “We found the pictures on Harding’s phone and some keepsakes from the murders. We’re hopeful he goes down for all four murders.”

The wind off the water was chilly, so I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Sometimes there is justice. Sounds like we have two fewer killers in the neighborhood today.”

We were quiet for a bit. “I’m sorry about your gran,” she said.

My throat tightened and tears rushed in to blur my vision. I’d been doing so good, not thinking about it, about the loss of her. It was all so complicated and gut-wrenching. She was my Gran, the one I’d always turned to as a child when Mom had seemed cold and unfeeling. Knowing I’d been manipulated, even robbed, was devastating. I couldn’t make it make sense. I’d felt warmth and affection from Gran. I was sure of it. And yet… She was a complicated woman, raised by cruel elders—if Bracken was to be believed, and why wouldn’t he be?

She’d been raised to always put family first, to protect and promote Coreys. Did she steal from me? It sure seemed like it, but I also knew that Gran was the one family members went to when they were in trouble and needed help. Sometimes that help was financial.

My guess was that she had an account the three million went into and out of which came the loans she gave others. Maybe she’d originally thought of me as the half-faeling guard dog who could protect and benefit the family and then, eventually, learned to love me. Maybe. Someday, I’d ask Mom, but I wasn’t ready for the answer right now.

“And I’m sorry about yours,” I said to Hernández, patting my face and soaking up the tears with my gloves.

She gave me a sad almost-smile. “Thanks.”

“Wait,” I said, sitting up straight. “What day is it?”

“Wednesday.”

I slumped back down. “Oh, thank goodness. I thought I was going to have to open the gallery soon.” I shook my head. “How is it only Wednesday?”

“Don’t you want to know about your stalker?” she asked.

I gave her a Declan-worthy scowl. “What about him?”

“A body washed ashore early this morning. Drowning victim named Brandon White.”

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