Page 16 of Ghost With the Most
“Probably both,” Zelda said brightly. “You’re welcome!”
I rubbed my temples, teeth clenched so tight I was one ill-timed confession away from snapping in half. “This is not how we find out who killed Beau.”
“It might be,” she said with maddening calm. “Truth magic just needs the right trigger. You drop the spell like a net, then you watch for the ripple.”
I glared at her, then peered around the corner of the stall. The golden mist had begun to settle, glitter sinking into cobblestones like stardust giving up. The town square looked like a renaissance faire that had suffered a moral implosion. People clutched their heads and their dignity like both might be salvageable.
Then, through the rising cacophony of personal revelations and magical embarrassment, a voice rang out, sudden and unfiltered, as sharp and precise as a bell cut from stone.
“The attorney was there that night!”
Time cracked open. The square stilled around me, or maybe I just moved faster than it. I turned toward the voice, scanning until my eyes locked on a short, plump man.
“Dennis?” Zelda said incredulously.
The town’s mailman, hobbled by a limp, powered by spite, and possessed of an uncanny knack for overhearing things that should never be said aloud, stood near the fountain with his mouth open wide in horrified disbelief. He looked like someone who’d just blurted a prophecy and now desperately wanted to swallow it back down. I strode toward him, boots crunching against gravel that shimmered faintly gold under the spell’s glow.
“Dennis,” I said, my tone carefully measured. “What did you just say?”
His jaw worked, clenched tight against the truth, but the enchantment had its claws deep. He couldn’t lie. Not right now.
“I—I saw his car. Parked behind the funeral home.” His voice cracked. “Night Beau died. It was late. Black sedan, that ridiculous personalized plate of his. No one else in town drives a car like that.”
“Whose car?” I pressed, heart thudding. “What time?”
“Ramsay O’Connor, the town attorney. About three in the morning. Was doing my early route. Had some overnight parcels. The streets were dead, but the lights were on in the parlour. Just glowing through the curtains like someone was waiting.”
“Did you see anyone go inside?”
He shook his head, then cursed as his mouth moved without permission. “Didn’t want to get involved. O’Connor’s a vulture.”
I turned slowly to Zelda, who was grinning like she’d just caused a controlled demolition and filmed it for a highlight reel. “Still mad?” she chirped, practically vibrating with smug.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “I want to strangle you with your own moonstones.”
“But it worked.”
“Yes,” I admitted, teeth clenched. “It worked.”
“Yay!”
“I’m not celebrating.”
“You just said it worked.”
“I will feed you to a reanimated gnome.”
She gasped. “Kinky!”
Before I could summon a counter-hex, a commotion to our left snapped our attention toward the far end of the square. Someone had knocked over a flower stand, and a blur of motion—a tall figure in a cheap charcoal-gray coat—vanished into the alley between the florist and the tea shop. I only caught a glimpse, but my instincts kicked hard.
“Did you see that?” I whispered.
Zelda was already moving. “Oh, hell yes.”
We gave chase, cutting through the confessional madness, dodging townsfolk in various stages of magical overshare. As we reached the alley, I caught the faint scent of smoke and something colder underneath, like old paper, dust, and decay. The space was empty, save for a single, half-burned piece of legal paper that had obviously been dropped near the drain.
I knelt, fingers brushing the parchment.
