Grave Ransom Read online

  Well. Crap.

  “I can speak to ghosts,” I said, nodding slowly and trying to keep them focused on my face as I discreetly pressed a button on my office phone. Nothing overt happened, but it would cause a light to flash on the phone at the front desk, and with luck, Ms. B would interrupt in a moment with an excuse to end this consultation early. It was a signal we’d worked out back when the firm had been inundated with unreasonable requests leading up to Halloween. Opening my palms in front of me and offering the grieving couple my most placating smile, I said, “But ghosts are very rare. Most souls move on immediately following death. It is very unlikely your daughter’s ghost remained.”

  “She was a very good girl, Miss Craft. She wouldn’t have passed on. She would have waited,” Rachael said, her glassy eyes pleading for it to be true.

  I glanced at the photo of a pretty young girl with sun-kissed cheeks and ringlets pulled back from her face with blue bows. She looked small for her age, frail from the disease that had claimed her life. I couldn’t imagine her putting up the frantic fight that would have caused a soul collector to release her into the purgatory of the land of the dead. And if Rachael’s description of her being a good girl was accurate, she probably wouldn’t have fought the collector in the first place, going peacefully from here to wherever souls went next. But I couldn’t say that. It fell into the category of sharing secrets about the soul collectors, which was rather frowned upon, and since I was sort of dating one, I tried not to do anything that would get him into trouble. You know, more than his forbidden relationship with me would cause.

  “I don’t think there is anything I can do for you.”

  “We need to find her,” Rue said, pushing to his feet. He pressed both hands flat on my desk, leaning forward.

  He was a big man, over forty but still in decent shape based on the muscle tone his suit hinted at. Grief had pulled at the skin around his eyes and his mouth, and his hair was slightly unkempt, like he normally kept it cut short but had forgotten to see a barber in a while. Magic buzzed around him. Nothing active, or even focused. He had some charms in his pocket, too weak while inactive for me to pinpoint what they did. Raw magic filled rings on each of his pointer fingers, and more raw magic waited in what I guessed was a pendant around his neck.

  His wife grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back to his seat. “Rue, stop. We need her help.”

  “I won’t lose my daughter again,” he said, shrugging off his wife and leaning closer to me, invading my space. For her part, his wife melted back into her chair, collapsing into herself as she sobbed into her hands.

  I met Rue Saunders’s piercing stare evenly. Grief did strange things to people. Some people broke under their sadness. Others got angry. Rue was clearly the latter. And while I felt for him—losing a child was a horrible thing—that didn’t give him a right to try to bully me.

  His aggressive posture had apparently gotten Briar’s attention as well. Though I couldn’t afford to look toward her, I could feel the cluster of spells she wore moving closer. I did not want her getting involved, which meant I needed to defuse this situation fast.

  “I can’t help you. Mr. and Mrs. Saunders, I think it’s time you go.”

  Rue lifted his palms and slammed them back on my desk, making everything on the surface shake. The picture of my dog toppled.

  I gritted my teeth and pushed out of my own chair. Standing switched our positions so I loomed over his hunched form now, and he had to either straighten and move out of my space or crane his head to look up at me.

  Briar was so close, I could have reached out and touched her, but she hadn’t revealed herself. I hoped she’d hold back. Ms. B should interrupt any minute now.

  Rue straightened. We were nearly the same height when both standing, the expanse of my desk separating us. His hands balled into fists at his side. “You can help. You have the magic. You just won’t.”

  On my desk, the phone buzzed, indicating Ms. B wanted to open the intercom line. About time. I hit the flashing button.

  “Hate to interrupt, but your next appointment is waiting,” the brownie said in her gruff voice.

  “I’m just finishing up here,” I said in response, hitting the button to close the line again. Then I gave the couple in front of me a tight smile. “I hate that I can’t help you, but there is nothing I can do. Now, if there is nothing else, I think we’re done.”

  Rue Saunders stared at me a moment longer, his wife still sobbing behind him. Then he grabbed the photograph of his daughter off my desk and turned.

  “Come on. There are other grave witches.” He stormed out of my office without waiting for his wife. The door slammed behind him and I felt Briar back off, retreating to her corner again.

  Rachael moved slower. As if she had to rebuild herself to climb out of the chair. She clutched the soaked tissues in a hand curled against her chest. “I’m so . . . He didn’t mean all that. It’s hard on him.”

  I nodded acknowledgment of her not-quite-voiced apology and held out a fresh tissue to her. “I would help if I could.”

  She made a sound under her sob that might have been anything and accepted the tissue. Then she dragged herself out of my office, moving slow, stiff, as if she’d aged twenty years in the short consultation. Once the door shut behind her, I sagged back into my chair, letting out a long breath.

  The door opened before I could even turn toward Briar. I looked up, but the doorway was empty. So I looked down.

  Ms. B studied me from where she peeked around the door. She stood no taller than my knee at her full height, her quill-like green hair fanning around her face like a mane.

  “I take it we won’t be billing them?” she asked, glancing back over her shoulder.

  “Not so much.”

  She nodded, but if she was disappointed or upset about that fact, I couldn’t tell. Though brownies are diminutive in size, their features are fairly similar to a human’s except that brownies lack noses. I’d never have guessed a nose was an important feature to allow others to decipher expressions until I had daily dealings with Ms. B. Or maybe the brownie just had a killer poker face and lacked microexpressions.

  “Are you ready for me to send in the next client?”

  I sat up straighter. “You mean there really is another client?”

  She cocked her head, fixing me with her dark eyes. “I’ll send him in.”

  I stared at the door as it shut. She’d said another client was waiting. I’d assumed that was for my rescue, but she was fae. She couldn’t lie.

  Taking a deep breath, I made a quick assessment of my office. As high as the tensions had been for a moment, there wasn’t much evidence. I picked up the fallen picture and moved the tissue box back to its spot, and everything was as good as new. I glanced over at Briar’s corner. The spell made my eyes want to skid past her, not seeing her, but the fact that I could feel the spell made it easier to resist its influence. She pantomimed a yawn when my gaze landed on her. I wanted to tell her she could leave if she was bored, but footsteps were approaching in the hall.

  The door slid open slowly, admitting a girl who appeared to be about seventeen years old. Inwardly I groaned. I needed paying clients. Still, I plastered on my professional face as she stepped inside, but cringed again when she turned and thanked Ms. B for showing her in.

  “Don’t thank fae,” I said, on reflex.

  The girl froze, her cupid’s bow of a mouth half open. “Did I offend her?” She turned and looked like she was about to say she was sorry to Ms. B’s retreating figure. I preemptively cut her off.

  “Don’t apologize either,” I said, trying to keep my smile in place. The girl was jumpy. “But it doesn’t offend them. It acknowledges a debt they could cash in. Ms. B is good folk, but it’s best to never thank or apologize to anyone whom you suspect might be fae.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know. Thank you.” />
  And back to my internal cringing as the smallest gulf of debt opened between us. But she couldn’t have known. I intentionally passed as human, mostly because until a few months ago, I’d thought I was a normal human witch. Well, a wyrd witch, at least.

  “I’m Alex Craft,” I said, standing and holding out my hand. “What can I do for you, Miss . . . ?”

  “Taylor. Taylor Carlson.” She took my hand tentatively, but once she made contact, the handshake was good and firm.

  I motioned to the client chairs in front of my desk. She took one and I sank into my own chair.

  “What can I do for you today?”

  Taylor pulled a cell phone from her bag, tapped the screen for a moment, and then pushed it across the desk toward me. “This is my boyfriend, Remy.”

  I glanced at the displayed photo. In it was a smiling boy not much older than Taylor wearing a football jersey. He had one arm around Taylor’s shoulders, pulling her close, and the other disappeared off the edge of the photo at an awkward angle, the telltale sign he was taking the picture. The time stamp of the photo was only a week old.

  I glanced at my prospective client. She perched at the edge of her chair, one hand twisting and untwisting the strap of her bag. A small crease had formed over her nose, and her lips compressed as she stared at the picture she’d passed me, but if I had to put money on it, I would have said she was scared, not sad. She certainly wasn’t displaying the sorrow I’d expect from someone whose boyfriend had died within the last week.

  “Okay,” I said, passing the phone back to her. “I’m assuming you’re not here to have his shade raised.”

  “No.” She blanched, shaking her head. “No. I mean. I hope not. He’s missing.”

  “A missing person is probably something you should take to the police, not a private investigator.”

  “I know.” Her face scrunched tighter, making her nose crinkle and her mouth purse as if too many emotions were jostling for space on her face and crowding each other into her features. “And I tried them. But he’s over eighteen and hasn’t been missing long enough for anyone to pay attention. But if I’m paying someone to look for him, you have to take me seriously, right? And this is a magic-based firm, so you can track him with a spell. I brought you some of his things.” She opened her bag and pulled out a large T-shirt, a high school ring, and an origami flower before shoving them across my desk.

  I glanced at the haul and then back up at Taylor. “How long has Remy been missing?”

  She winced. “I’m not sure? Since last night definitely. He was going to pick me up after I got off work at eleven, but he never showed. He’s not answering his phone, and I talked to his college roommate, but he says he hasn’t seen him since yesterday afternoon. I just know something awful has happened to him.”

  I glanced at the clock on my computer. It was barely ten in the morning. No wonder the police had sent her away. Her boyfriend had been seen less than twenty-four hours ago.

  “And he’s never missed a date before?”

  She shook her head. “Not without calling. This isn’t like him. We’ve been together since my junior year. I know him. He wouldn’t just not contact me.”

  To me, someone who’d been out of college for a while, being together since junior year of high school sounded like a long time, but I was guessing it wasn’t in this case. “He’s in college now, and you are . . . ?”

  “A senior in high school.” She crossed her arms over her chest, sulking that I’d questioned her age, which only made her look younger. “But look, here are the texts he sent me yesterday afternoon.” She tapped on her phone again before passing it to me. “I know something is wrong. If you will investigate, I want to hire your firm. If you won’t, tell me now so I can find someone else and neither of us wastes our time.”

  I read over the texts she’d pulled up. They were gagworthily sappy, but it sure sounded like he’d planned to pick her up last night. Of course, he could have been going through the motions of the script they’d made in high school while having outgrown his high school sweetheart now that he was in college. Or maybe I was just cynical about relationships.

  Taylor leaned forward, the pink of her lips almost invisible as she pressed them together, waiting for me to answer. She looked earnest, scared but hopeful. I sighed.

  “Okay,” I said, handing her back her phone. “But before we go any further, let me break down the fees and contract for you.” Because this was going to be one very expensive broken heart if it turned out he was fine but dumping her.

  “I’m good for the money. I’ve been saving for a car.”

  Great, because that didn’t make me feel guilty at all. But this was a business, not a charity, so I dug through my desk drawer until I found the boilerplate “search and recovery” contract my partner and I had drafted. Rianna, my business partner, had taken a couple of lost item cases, and even one lost pet, but I’d never used this particular contract, and neither of us had taken a missing-person case before.

  The contract was fairly simple, laying out how charges and fees would break down. The retainer covered the initial tracking spell as well as the first five hours spent on the investigation. Taylor’s eyes bulged a bit at the number, and I considered knocking it down to a two-hour charge, but it would be better to refund her some of the retainer if Remy turned up quickly rather than bill her for more later if tracking him proved difficult.

  After she’d signed the contract and I’d processed her debit card, I once again examined the haul she’d spread on my desk.

  “Did he wear the shirt last or did you?” I asked, lifting the crumpled T-shirt that looked like it had been slept in more than once.

  “Uh, me. But it is his.”

  “And the ring?”

  “I’ve been wearing it on a chain around my neck since early summer.”

  Which left the origami flower. I motioned to it. “Did he make this himself? How long ago?”

  Her shoulders lifted in a slight wince. “Our first date?”

  Which meant it had been over a year since Remy had touched the paper. Technically, a tracking spell could be worked with nothing more than a name or photo, but the working would be a lot more precise with something to focus the spell. Hair, fingernail clippings, blood, or the like were the preferred focus, but a personal item that the person used often or carried with them would work as well. Unfortunately, all the items on my desk would likely lead back to Taylor.

  “It would be helpful to have something a little more personal to him—a toothbrush, a comb, an article of clothing only he’s worn, or something of that nature.”

  Taylor’s lips screwed sideways as she thought, and then her eyebrows lifted, her face brightening with a thought. She opened her bag and dug around inside. “He used my brush just this weekend.”

  She pulled a bright pink, soft-bristled brush from her purse and held it out toward me triumphantly. Clearly the words “personal” and “only he uses” hadn’t quite registered. Then again, Taylor had long bottle-blond hair, and even with my bad eyes, I could see short, dark hair mixed in her brush.

  “Remy is the only other person who has used this brush? You’re sure?” I asked, because I wasn’t digging hair out of someone else’s brush only to have the spell lead to one of her school friends.

  “I’m positive.”

  She answered a little quickly for my taste, but it was the best possibility we had available. I accepted the brush but then hesitated. An evidence bag, or even just a plastic baggie I could write on, would be useful in a situation like this, but as it had never come up before, I didn’t have either in my desk. After a moment’s indecision, I placed the brush in my top desk drawer. Then I opened a document on my computer and collected Remy’s full name, phone number, and current address. As an afterthought, I jotted down his roommate’s name and number as well, as I’d almost certainly have to con
tact him.

  “Well, that should get me started,” I said, saving the document.

  “You’ll start looking immediately, right? Can I wait here while you cast the tracking spell?” Taylor asked, perching on the edge of her seat again.

  “My business partner will be the one who casts the spell.” Because my traditionally witchy spells were notoriously unreliable. “But I’ll follow it, and we don’t know yet where it will lead, so there is little point in you staying here, which is one place we know for sure Remy is not located.”

  “Oh. That makes sense, I guess.” She rose to her feet, but she didn’t move toward the door.

  “Go home in case he tries to contact you. I’ll call as soon as I have information.”

  She nodded and trudged toward the door, as if hoping I’d stop her if she hesitated long enough. I had nothing more to offer, so I didn’t stop her. Instead, I escorted her out of my office and across the Tongues for the Dead lobby. At the main door she hesitated again.

  “You’ll let me know as soon as you find something?”

  “That’s what you’re paying me to do.”

  “Right.” She gave me a weak smile, but she nodded, and then, hiking her bag higher on her shoulder, she marched up the sidewalk.

  Once she was gone, I turned and glanced at Rianna’s door. It was closed.

  “Is she out or—?”

  “With a client,” Ms. B said in her typical gruff manner.

  I nodded, not taking offense at being cut off. That was just the brownie’s way. By all accounts, she liked me. I’d hate to think how she’d act if she didn’t.

  As I reached my office, Rianna’s door opened. I turned in time to see a man of about fifty step out of her office. He wore a dark suit, as if he’d just come from a funeral, but he was dry-eyed. In fact, he was smiling. When he saw me, he dipped his head in a friendly nod. He even smiled at Ms. B before heading out to the street, his well-manicured hands clasped behind him.

  I watched him stroll past our large picture window before I turned to Rianna, one eyebrow lifted.