Page 64 of Monster's Baby

“The earrings my grandfather gave to me.”

“I didn’t find those in the lost and found while I was cleaning yesterday.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.I’m also sure that you’re being framed.May I please enter?”

Grain narrowed his eyes, but he stepped aside, and I followed the trail to the wall behind his desk.There was a large picture of the Earth taken from behind the moon on the wall.

“Can I take this down?”I asked.

“Can you lift it?”he replied incredulously.

I twiddled my fingers.“Witch.”

He looked sheepish.“Right.Go ahead.”

Behind the framed picture was a hollow, and it was filled with jewelry.

Grain looked surprised.“That wasn’t there when I decorated the office.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” I said, trying to be reassuring.“We’ll speak up for you.”

“That won’t help,” he said, looking defeated.

“Are you going to run?”Aiden asked him, curious.

“What good would that do?They’ve got tracking on me.There’s nowhere I can go.Plus, it would make me look guilty as hell.”Grain groaned, running a hand down his face.“Someone must hate having me here.”

“That’s a pretty good motive, actually,” I said.“We have to notify the authorities, unfortunately.Hopefully they can do something with what we’ve found that will help them find the true thief.”

“I don’t have much hope of that, Miss Doyle,” Grain said with a sigh.“Well, let’s get this over with.”

CHAPTER16

I wanted to destroy something,so Aiden took me down to his private room and set up a punching bag.

“He shouldn’t have been taken,” I growled, punching the bag hard enough to make it almost tip over.

It magically righted itself.

“He had no need for those things,” I continued.“He couldn’t go anywhere to sell them, he has no contacts in today’s world to send them to.They were useless to him.It’s soobviousthat he was set up!”I roared, taking my anger out on the inanimate object.

“Butnoooooo, the authorities didn’t evenlookfor concealed spells.Who might have touched the objects.Who else was in Grain’s office.I’m soangry!” I screamed, kicking at the base of the bag.

My toes throbbed and I hopped on one foot until I collapsed on the ground, burying my face in my hands.

“It’s not fair,” I whispered.“He’s being punished when he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“They’ve only taken him in on the off chance that he did it,” Aiden tried to reason with her.

“That’sstupid,” I growled.“It’s not like he was a serial killer.Nobody was getting hurt.”

“He still violated his parole.”

“Stop talking as if hedid it!”

Aiden squatted next to me on the floor.“I believe in his innocence,” he said quietly.“What we need to figure out is why someone framed him, and why they were taking things in the first place.”

I took a deep breath and pushed my hair back from my face.“Have the authorities finished in Grain’s office?”

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