Page 68 of Crossroads Magic
Hirom scratched the back of his head. “But if she didn’t do it herself, that means….”
“Someone in this town did it,” I finished.
Hirom plucked at his shirt. “I don’t know I like that so much.”
“Neither do I,” I admitted. “But unless someone sneaked into the town, killed her, then sneaked out, it has to be someone who lives here. And my mother didn’t have friends outside the town. She had a lawyer that she sort of knew. And she talked to me. That’s it.”
“So it was either a random act of craziness by someone who just happened to be passing by, or it was someone in the Crossing,” Hirom summarized.
“And most murders are committed by friends and family.”
Hirom considered that for a long while, then blew out his breath in a long, soft raspberry. “Yep. Sucks.”
Chapter Twenty-One
December 14: Sweet Harper…she is in such a tizz about her missing summoning token. She asked me to find it for her, today. That shows how desperate she is to retrieve it. She says it was stolen. She was keeping it in a warded bag, but it’s gone missing. There are not a lot of people who could get past a warded bag.
I put the journals away and went downstairs for one of Hirom’s coffees. I felt sluggish and brain dead from reading for too long. But I couldn’t help but think that the more I got to know the people of this town, the quicker I could figure out who had killed my mother. And my mother’s journals were a short cut. Otherwise I would either have to spend years here, getting to know everyone, or else interrogate them to learn what I needed to know.
Somehow, I didn’t think anyone in this town would sit still and let themselves be cross-examined. Not by me. I was nobody.
As I was asking Hirom for the coffee, my phone buzzed. A rare phone call, and for once, I had two bars on the phone. The bar seemed to be the cellphone hotspot for the town. I didn’t know the number and there was no name, so I answered the call cautiously.
“Anna?” the male voice asked. The voice was familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it. And it wasn’t a robot.
“Who wants to know?”
“Ummm…it’s Royston Harrish, Anna. Sorry to disturb you.”
I sat up straighter. “Royston! Good god! It’s been…”
“Years,” he finished. “I know. I’m so goddamn busy these days even Sally has forgotten what I look like. Your husband did me a solid, selling me the business. And I thought he was laying it on thick.”
There was something odd about that, that I wanted to tease out, but Royston continued speaking. “I have an email that came to the admin address for the business, but it’s personal for you. And I don’t want to just delete it. That wouldn’t be right.”
“Of course. Let me give you my email address.” I gave him my current email address. “Did you get this number from Jasper?” I added. I had always made sure Jasper had my current contact information, for reasons like this, while he couldn’t even keep his children up to date.
I pushed the uncharitable thought away.
“Actually, I got the number from your old employer. The production company. Thanks, Anna. I’ll send the email on to you as soon as I finish this call.”
“Before you do, Royston, could you tell me what you meant by Jasper laying it on thick? About the business?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Royston said quickly. “Everyone talks up something they’re trying to sell. Turns out, Jasper wasn’t exaggerating about how good the business was.”
I could hear my heart thudding in my ears, which muffled my hearing. “He came to you about selling the business…” My voice came out croaky.
“Well, yeah,” Royston said. Then, “Shit, you didn’t know.”
I pressed my hand against my chest as my breathing shallowed and my lungs hurt. “He told me you came to him.” It took three breaths to say it.
Royston made a clucking sound with his tongue. “I don’t know what to say, Anna. He came to me. Said he was desperate. Wanted the business gone. His offer was cheaper than fair market price. I couldn’t say no.”
Jasper had sold the business at a discount. And he had told me that Royston had made an offer too good to pass up. Well over market price, Jasper had said.
“It’s okay,” I told Royston. “Don’t worry about it. It was Jasper’s business to sell.”
Royston said something polite and disconnected. I dropped the phone to the counter and bent over, my feet on the floor to prop me up, and tried to breathe.
