Mid-Century Monster, page 8
part #3 of Solstice Properties Mystery Series
RJ glanced at Cin and subtly pointed between the ghost and the real estate agent.
Shrugging, Cin turned and headed toward the back door. She wasn’t sure if either her mother or Marzie would follow her, but she felt like she needed to get them separated. Thinking back, she wasn’t sure if the two had ever been in the same room at the same time before. She’d never picked up any indication that Marzie was magical in any way, but it wasn’t unheard of for some things to manifest later in life. With a monster prowling the house, it wasn’t something she wanted to deal with if she could avoid it, at least for a little while.
“I’ll be in the root cellar if anyone needs me.” Cin stopped and grabbed a pair of work gloves from the stack sitting on the floor next to one of RJ’s toolboxes.
“Hang on, maybe I can help.” Marzie came after her.
“I don’t know what you’ve done, but you removed something that was blocking me in here.” Cin’s mother followed as well. “That tells me, someone was using runes or something else they scribed into the walls, or woodwork or something.”
“Don’t forget your gloves, Marzie.” Cin pointed at the stack there.
“Oh, gloves. Yeah. I’ve got a pair out in the car.” She looked at the ones near the toolbox. “I tried some of those the other day and they were just too big. Men and their big hands. I’ll run get mine. Be right back.”
Cin stood by the back door and waited for Marzie to make it out the front before doing more than look at her mother. “Okay, be quick.”
“I think she can see me.” Charity glanced toward the door where Marzie had gone. “It’s not uncommon—”
“Mom.” Cin cocked her head. “What about the house? Something got moved or something?”
“Oh, yeah. Remember, I was having trouble getting around in here. That’s totally gone. If we didn’t see it on the walls, then maybe it was covered over with paint or something.” Charity walked over the one hole in the floor where the empty wall had been. “Yeah, I can still feel something here. It’s been here for a long time, so even removing it left some residue.”
“Maybe it was on one of the studs or something.” RJ took a few steps over and glanced down. “We didn’t get all the sheetrock and paneling off before we pulled the studs. I was trying to watch, but I might’ve missed it.”
Cin’s mother smiled and patted RJ’s cheek. “We can’t expect you to spot everything, my dear.”
The door opened and Marzie returned, pulling her gloves on. “Is it going to be a pain filling in that hole?”
RJ turned toward her. “Nah, a small frame to bridge the gap and then a piece of subfloor to make everything level and once the top flooring is put in, nobody will ever know there was something weird here.”
“Little tricks of the trade.” Marzie grinned. “When you start working on that let me know. I’d like to watch, in case I come across something like this in the future.”
“Okay.” RJ flashed her a thumbs up. “Chad and I have a couple things to do first, when we get started, I’ll come find you.”
Wishing Marzie had taken a little longer in getting her gloves so they could’ve continued talking with her mother, Cin opened the back door. “Well, come on, that root cellar isn’t going to clean itself out.”
Cin repressed a shiver as they entered the root cellar. As in the house, the smell of animal was stronger, and she frowned. They had to figure out what was going on, or they were never going to be able to sell the place. If there really was some kind of monster there, they needed to find it and deal with it. She couldn’t in good faith just pass off the place to some unsuspecting family who would probably not have the ability to deal with the unusual.
“Okay, I know it smells a lot worse down here than it did yesterday.” Marzie stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked around. “It doesn’t look any different.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Cin looked around at the shelves and piles of stuff that looked a lot like nesting material.
At the howl from her phone, Cin paused and answered it. “What’s up?”
“Just got off the phone with Chief Zack.” A slight chuckle rumbled in Chad’s voice. “He said his forensics guys are on their way over to check the cellar, so if you moved anything, put it back.”
“Oh crap.” Cin took a step back from the shelf she was about to start clearing of nest clutter. “I completely forgot you called him and asked him to send someone over.”
“Too much going on.” Chad laughed. “I forgive you, and if you haven’t moved much, Zack will too. Odds are the cellar isn’t tied to the thing that killed Juan.”
“We’ll see.” Cin ended the call, and glanced at Marzie. “We’re upstairs. I forgot about the police folks coming over to check the place out.”
“They think whatever lives here killed Juan.” Marzie looked around, then took a couple of steps back toward the stairs.
Cin headed up the stairs. “Maybe. Chad thought it was a good idea.”
“I’ll look through what I can,” Cin’s mother said. “It feels strange down here. Maybe I can spot something while the police go over it.”
Marzie stopped and stared toward where Charity stood. “There’s something here, right now. I can feel it.”
Pausing, Cin hid her frown from Marzie. “This whole place feels weird. Down here is worse than the rest of the house.”
“No.” Marzie crossed her arms and shook her head. “It’s more than that. I can hear something that I can’t make out. It’s like there’s a whispering. I heard something similar upstairs. I’m not losing my mind, am I?”
Cin closed the distance between them and gave Marzie a hug. “No, you’re not losing it. There’s a lot going on and maybe someone has their TV on too loud or something. The guy next door is really old.”
Marzie hugged her back. “It sounds more than that. But maybe you’re right.” She let go of Cin and shook her head. “You know, I think I’m going to go. Tell RJ I’ll get him to explain the hole-patching thing again later. Maybe if I can see the results I can figure out what he did. I’m going to lie down for a bit.”
“Okay.” Cin gave her a smile. “It’s not like I can dock your pay or anything.” Her phone rang again, this time the tone for the office. “Sounds like I just got busier too.” As she answered the call she was fairly sure it was going to be more than just telling Michael where she kept the spare printer paper. They were going to have to be a lot more careful with magic around Marzie, or they’d end up exposing her to more than she needed.
13
Cin eased out of her final downward dog position and lay on her yoga mat for several seconds as the rest of the class around her stood and began their goodbyes as they rolled up their blue foam mats and headed toward the day. For some reason, it felt really good to just lie there and relax. With the strangeness at the new reno, and trying to keep everything weird from drawing too much of Marzie’s attention, and training the new office guy, she was a lot more tired than she was used to.
“You gonna lie there all day?” Chad already had his mat rolled up and under his arm.
“So what if I am? Shelby can just lock up, and I’ll stay here. You and RJ can handle everything today, right?” She forced herself to sit up and stare at him, giving him her best tired-puppy look.
Chad shook his hand. “Sorry. That text I got earlier was RJ saying he was heading to the new condo in Wolf Creek. One of the units is reporting a problem in the heating system and he’s going to see if he can fix it without calling in a pro HVAC guy. I need to go over and see about a leak at the Stone house. You get to call Marzie and tell her we won’t be working at the house today, and then head to the office.”
“But I can go get coffee first, right?” Cin shifted off her mat and rolled it up.
“I guess.” Chad held out his hand to carry her mat for her.
“Okay, you guys, Zack asked me to corner you after class and relay some info.” Shelby had taken a seat in one of her beanbag chairs.
“Oh,” Chad sounded instantly interested.
Cin followed him as he strode across the room. “What’s up?”
“He said to tell you this isn’t official.” She air-quoted. “Since Chad’s not on the force anymore, but you guys found the body and are working on that house, you might want to know.”
“Tell him thanks from us.” Chad flashed a smile. “I really appreciate it.”
“He knows.” Shelby smiled. “Anyway. There’s a couple of things. And all of it’s officially off the record. It’s not like Cottonwood has a lot of people looking over his shoulder, or yours either. But those FBI guys who were around last year after Sheriff Jackson died shook him up a bit.”
Chad nodded. “They shook a few of us up.”
Cin was still happy that Agent Briar hadn’t tried to actively recruit Chad into his supernatural FBI unit. It was enough that they were aware of the unit's existence.
“Anyway, Zack said that Juan didn’t die from an animal attack, it was a gunshot to the heart. The coroner told him last night. There was enough animal damage that it made it easy to miss the bullet wound.”
“Bullet?” Cin stared at Shelby. “Who would shoot Juan? Did he say anything if the animal attack came after he was dead or had someone shot him after?” As she asked she realized it was a fairly dumb question since if the animal damage covered the bullet wound, the animal attack had to have come either before or during.
“That’s the weird thing. There seems to have been multiple animal attacks. Something about at least three sets of claw and fang marks, maybe more.”
“More?” Chad frowned. “But if there were more, that would mean we have a pack of things wandering around that neighborhood, and how could that stay under cover?” He shook his head. “That shouldn’t be possible.”
“Unless they’re all nesting in our root cellar.” Cin paced a bit in front of Shelby still seated on her beanbag.
“If that’s the case, then RJ’s trail cameras will catch them.” Chad shifted their yoga mats to hold them from the straps.
“That’s the other thing.” Shelby leaned back and pulled up a travel mug from behind her chair. “Zack said there were a lot more reports of animal noises in the neighborhood lately than there had been, but there’ve always been reports of strange sounds. More coyote sightings than in any other part of Cottonwood.”
Chad shook his head. “Sorry, I’m not smelling a coyote around the place. It’s something else."
“But it might be close enough to a coyote that people think that’s what they’re seeing,” Cin suggested. One of the first rules of the supernatural community was that humans tended to file anything they didn’t know into something that was a close fit. Most werewolves were simply shoved off into big-dog boxes, or maybe regular wolf categories because that’s what they expected to see. It made dealing with the occasional sightings easier to dismiss. People wanted to see what they were accustomed to seeing and not something strange or unusual.
“But if it isn’t a coyote what could it be?” Shelby returned her cup to where she’d pulled it.
“There’re lots of possibilities,” Chad replied. “Wolves are one of them. There’re more moving into Colorado all the time. But I want to see what RJ caught on the cameras last night.”
“Thing is, why would Juan have a bullet in him?” Cin rubbed her chin as she frowned. Somehow it was easier to accept an animal, or monster attack than it was a human-fired bullet. Why would anyone in the neighborhood kill one of their workers? She didn’t like the idea that their’s wasn’t a safe worksite.
“Zack said he was going to upgrade the case to homicide.” Shelby stood and stretched. “I need to get going. Got a couple of errands to run before the next class.”
“And I barely have time for a quick shower before getting to the office. Since I don’t have to help with the reno today, I can work on getting monthly reports out to the owners.” An idea hit Cin. “Maybe I can even teach Michael to do them.”
Shelby waved them toward the door as she grabbed her purse from her desk in the far corner. “I haven’t stopped by to take a peek, but rumor has it your new help is kinda cute. Not that I’m looking to dump Zack, but a girl’s gotta keep her eyes open for the candy out there.”
“And what are the rest of us?” Chad pouted playfully as he opened the door.
“Oh, Chad.” Shelby laughed. “You are definitely some of the better eye candy in this town. Sometimes I don’t know how Cin manages to control herself with you and RJ around her all the time. Some of us think she just has a way of attracting all the hot guys near her.”
Cin mirrored her laugh and patted Chad’s cheek as she walked through the door out into the cool morning air. “I’m not telling any of my secrets. But let the women around town know, I’m not about to let go of my candy.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.” Shelby pulled out a ring of keys and locked the door behind them. “Nobody’s about to try and take anything you claim as yours.”
“Good.” Cin was still grinning as she stalked down the sidewalk to their car. She liked the idea that she had the other women in town cowed. She’d never even had to raise a magical finger to do it either.
Cin rubbed her eyes. Going over the incoming rent reports and preparing the corresponding reports for the property owners of the houses and apartments they managed was a monthly chore she often put off until the last day possible. That wasn’t the current case, but if she’d waited a few more days, she’d have had a couple of late nights at the office.
“You look like you could use some coffee.” Michael walked in with a couple of steaming cups in his hands.
“Yeah, that sounds good. Have things calmed down out there?” She took the cup he offered.
“For the moment.” He took a seat in the chair across from her. “Sorry we were too busy for you to show me how to do those reports.”
Sipping her coffee, Cin waved away his comment. “No worries. Today got busy while Chad and I were in yoga and it’s stayed that way. At least it’s not been a ton of life-and-death stuff. Those days can be the worst.”
“Maybe tomorrow will be easier.” Michael sipped from his cup. “Would it be okay if I brought in some different coffee? I mean, this stuff is okay, but I get a special brew from a coffee house in Breck and could bring that.”
“Sure. I’m always up for something different. If Chad and RJ don’t like it, we might have to save it for when they aren’t here.”
Before he had a chance to say anything more, Cin’s phone rang with Chad’s howl.
“That’s a really authentic wolf howl.” Michael raised his eyebrows.
“Chad’s idea.” Cin swiped the phone to answer it. “Hey, what’s up?”
“It’s nearly dinner time, finally got that leak at the Stone house fixed. It gave me an idea and I wanted to stop by the reno and check something. What do you say to meeting me there and we can stop and get some dinner after? If you want, we could call the girls to meet us at the steakhouse.”
Cin glanced at Michael. “Do you mind locking up? Chad wants to take me to dinner.”
“No problem. You guys go have some fun.” Michael gave her a bright smile.
“Thanks.” Cin smiled back. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Sounds good.” Then Chad was gone.
Dropping her phone in her purse, Cin turned off her computer and headed for the door. “I owe you one, Michael.”
“I’ll start a tab.” He gave her a thumbs-up as she hurried out of the office.
Something felt wrong as Cin pulled up into the driveway. Chad’s truck wasn’t there yet, nor was RJ’s. It was the first time she’d been to the house without anyone else around. Taking a deep breath, she tried to let herself feel the ambient energies of the place. There was something there. It was old and decaying. Most magic, even things rooted in runes and other symbols, needed a certain amount of upkeep to stay strong. If someone had cast spells a long time ago and then left, they would break down. Since she had to stretch her senses out to pick up on anything, there was a good possibility any spells hadn’t been maintained in a long time.
A shiver of anger hit her. Something, or someone was watching her and not happy about her being there.
“I think you should’ve consulted me about buying this place.”
Cin jumped in her car seat and stared at her mother in the passenger seat. “Sometimes I wish you came with a warning bell, a chime, or even a buzzer.”
Her mother grinned at her. “And then where would the fun of being a ghost be? I like being able to sneak up on you and the girls.”
“But it’s rude to do that when we’re working magic.” Cin pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping to fend off the headache that threatened to surge up around her. She hadn’t been doing anything major with her magic, but sometimes even little things could give a bit of a backlash when they were interrupted.
“You should’ve been able to feel me materializing.” Her mother grumped. “But at least Marzie isn’t around. I’ve done a bit of test haunting and I’m pretty sure she’s starting to see me.”
Closing her yes, Cin pushed her head back into her headrest. “Then you need to start making an effort to stay out of her view. Maybe just stand behind her when you’ve got something to say and she’s around.”
“That’s liable to make her jumpy too.”
Cin knew it would make her jumpy if a spirit was following her around and she could just imagine what it might due to Marzie if she was coming into magic late in life. “Then don’t go full visible and just talk to me.”
Her mom laughed. “And you’d go through the roof each time. Honestly girl, sometimes I think you completely forget I’m here at all.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.” Cin’s mother wasn’t about to give her the chance to forget she was still around.
Chad pulled in behind Cin’s car.
“Okay. Let’s head in.” Cin opened her door and stepped out.
