To Seize a Wayward Spirit by R.L. Naquin

Author:R.L. Naquin [Naquin, R.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-11-01T14:44:18+00:00

Chapter Twelve

The door to Jackie’s house was closed and locked, which gave me a little hope that she’d packed a bag, locked up and bolted for safer surroundings. Maybe she was already halfway to Canada. Maybe she was sitting in a boat in Disneyland visiting children from countries around the world. If so, she was never going to get that song out of her head. I envied that possible Jackie.

I hoped she was also eating a churro and wearing Mickey ears.

Tahm only made a small noise of rebuke when I used magic to pop the lock and swing the door open.

The inside of the house was dark.

“Hello?” I knocked on the open door as an afterthought. “Jackie?”

Tahm, Ash and I had come to investigate. We were still officially OGREs, and Tyrell had a dozen other, unrelated cases to work on, since nobody had been doing anything for the last few weeks. I’d called Brody on the way here and found out what little I could so we’d be prepared when we got here.

Jackie lived alone, didn’t have a boyfriend and was never late. Today, she hadn’t shown up for her shift, which was unheard of, especially without calling in. Something was definitely wrong. How wrong was up to us to find out.

Nothing was knocked over, so it didn’t look like there had been a struggle. We flipped lights each time we came across a switch, making the house grow brighter as we moved through it.

As we came to a dark hallway, it occurred to me what was missing. We looked like cops stepping carefully through the house, rounding corners slowly in case someone jumped out. But we didn’t have guns. Hells, we didn’t even have baseball bats or a can of pepper spray. Nobody had even suggested it.

Tahm, always the gentleman, shoved past me and went down the hall first. I rolled my eyes and followed. The first room we came to was a craft room—obviously the room where Jackie made the parts of her costume the mystery artist hadn’t made. Or maybe she used to use it before she figured out she could pay someone else, then take the credit.

Either way, the room didn’t look like it had been used in a while. Dust was thick on the sewing machine in the corner. We left the light on and moved to the next room.

The bathroom, though charming in its underwater theme, wasn’t interesting at first. I started to move on and stopped, retracing my steps. “Hey, guys?”

Ash poked her head in the room. “Yeah?”

Tahm hovered behind her in the hallway. “Find something?”

I held out a pink toothbrush I’d plucked from a slot by the sink. “Who leaves town without her toothbrush?”

“Maybe she had a spare.” Ash smiled hopefully, but I could see she wasn’t any more convinced than I was.

I rummaged in the drawers and pulled out a hairbrush, toothpaste and spare contacts. “She’d probably want these things, too.” I peeked in the shower and found all her toiletries still in there.

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