Black Witch Rising: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (Vanessa Kinley, Witch PI Book 3) by Roman Celia

Author:Roman, Celia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bone Diggers Press
Published: 2023-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Angel had not called or texted by the time I left Seth’s the next morning, still reeling from his goodbye kiss. If I’d known he packed that kind of punch, I might’ve given in a lot sooner.

The thought amused me as I slid into traffic and headed toward Angel’s house. At this time of day, she’d be sending her kids off to school. If luck held, she’d still be home and not out running errands. Otherwise, I’d have to try to catch her later at Madame Cassandra’s, and I wasn’t entirely sure she wanted me there.

Not that that had ever stopped me before. There was a big difference between pinning her down for information about an active case and dropping by for a social call.

And then there was her warning about being watched…

I frowned as a school bus rolled by me and I turned onto Angel’s street. Frost covered the grass, lending a wintry fairytale air to the postage stamp yards in her neighborhood. The houses here held working class families and, occasionally, groups of students bunking together to save on rent. Cars lined the streets, mostly aging trucks and domestic sedans. I slowed to allow another car to pass, then eased into the narrow passage left between two Ford F150s parked on opposite sides of the road, and finally pulled into an empty space near Angel’s concrete driveway.

Her nifty Chevy Spark sat in the carport attached to her house, parked nose out with the back hatch up. I slid out of my Accord and walked up the driveway, wondering if I should shut it. Assuming she’d forgotten to and hadn’t left it open on purpose.

A vague unease rumbled around my gut. I patted my thigh, resisting the urge to pull my gun. Not a cop, Nessie. Not anymore. And I didn’t even know if something was wrong or if Angel had gotten unaccountably absent-minded.

She’d always been so careful about security.

I hesitated on the front stoop, listening for activity inside the tiny house over the drone of morning rush hour drifting into the neighborhood from a busier road. Something slammed, a drawer maybe, then something else that sounded more like a sturdy trunk closing.

Angel came bustling into view carrying a plastic laundry basket full of folded towels into the kitchen, still in her pajamas.

Which struck me as strange. Shouldn’t the towels be going in the other direction, toward the hallway and, presumably, the bedrooms and bathrooms it connected?

I lifted my hand to knock, changed my mind in mid-motion, and punched one finger into the doorbell button. It chimed once. Something hit the floor with a plastic hollowness, accompanied by a long, low string of curses.

“Coming!” Angel yelled.

I stepped back and hooked my hands on my hips, putting plenty of space between me and the screen door.

She came rushing through the living room, her hands shaking. As soon as she spotted me, she stopped dead and speared me with a narrow-eyed spite I could feel from ten feet away. “You!”

I held my hands up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.