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  “I’m sorry, Maggie.” He put his gear shift in drive and peeled out of the space. “I am here to keep you safe from harm and when that person with the mysterious hat was looking through The Brew’s window, my circuits went off. I followed them down the street only they ducked down the alleyway. By the time I made it around the building, they were gone.”

  “I saw them looking through the window, but I figured they were looking at what time we opened.” I put my hands on his wheel to appear as if I was driving in case someone looked over.

  “I didn’t like what I felt, Maggie. I think it’s best you go home and help your mother out with the Christmas decorations.” He tried to make a left to go toward home, but I flipped on his manual switch. “Maggie, what are you doing?”

  “I understand that you want me to be safe and home is probably the best place. But, there’s no way in broomsticks that I’m going to help Mom decorate for Christmas when she completely skipped decorating for Halloween and Thanksgiving since she entered our house into the Christmas tour. Besides,” I braced myself because I knew he was going to blow a gasket when he heard what I was going to say next, “I need to go to SKUL and get my paycheck.”

  Immediately, Vinnie slowed down to a snail’s crawl.

  “Seriously?” I pushed the gas pedal a little more, which didn’t do much for me. Even in manual mode, there were limits. I did have full control of the steering wheel. “If it takes me all day to get there, I’m still going.”

  “Maggie, Mick Jasper has not contacted you for a couple of months. You will get your check another day. I think it’s in your best interest to go home. I think your mother would agree.” Vinnie wasn’t happy with my Life’s Journey, but it wasn’t for him to approve.

  “If your hunch is right about that person, the only way to find out if something is going on is to make an appearance at SKUL,” I said knowing that SKUL and my Life’s Journey were tied together.

  Every witch had what was called a Life’s Journey, what their purpose on this earth was. It wasn’t until the last six months that I’d found out my Life’s Journey was to be an undercover civilian agent for SKUL, Secret Keepers of Universal Law. As a part of Interpol it was a big spy division to keep the United States a safe place.

  And I’d worked a couple of cases with them as a civilian who they claimed blended into society. They had no clue that I was a witch and I would blend in just about anywhere with a snap of my fingers. Regardless, I still had a paycheck coming to me and it was a great way to see if there was really something going on or if Vinnie and I were just a little too on edge.

  “You wait right here until I get back,” I warned Vinnie even though he had a mind of his own and did what he thought was in my best interest. I grabbed my SKUL badge and put it in my pocket.

  When I got out of the car, I looked back at him with a scowl to let him know to play the normal, everyday car part. Like a good familiar, he beeped as though he had locked his doors, when in reality he didn’t need to lock a door because if anyone tried to mess with him, they’d get the surprise of their life.

  “Good morn—” Patsy looked up from the receptionist desk. SKUL headquarters was disguised as a dental office. It even came with the smell of cement and fluoride. “Oh, it’s you.” Her lips pursed.

  “Good morning, Patsy.” I smiled and showed her my badge.

  “Wait right there.” She stood up and stopped me from going around her to the hallway that led to the secret door to an elevator. “Does Mick know you are coming because he didn’t say anything to me.”

  Mick Jasper. I sighed.

  There were many reasons Vinnie didn’t like my Life’s Journey, one reason in particular. Mick Jasper.

  She grabbed the receiver of her phone and started to punch numbers.

  “I’m not here to see Mick. I’m here to see Burt.” I pushed my way around her desk but not without giving her a bout of upset stomach with the wiggle of my nose.

  A loud gurgle came from her belly. She blinked. One hand held the receiver while the other one clutched her stomach. She gulped a couple of times and rolled her lips together.

  “You stay.” She stuck her hand in front of her and scurried past me, putting her hand over her mouth.

  “If only you’d learn and let me back without an issue,” I whispered and helped myself down the hall.

  I opened the door that hid the elevator and got in once its doors slid open. I pushed the button to the bottom floor where the guts and inner workings of SKUL was located. The sound of people typing, talking, and the shuffling of papers filled the room around the cubicles. All different SKUL agents working on different things.

  I nodded to a few people who had recognized me and I recognized from the few times I’d been there. I walked down the hall to Burt’s office. Burt Devlin was the head of SKUL and the one who saw my potential value add to the team. Albeit, I’d yet to have the formal training he said I’d get, but so far my only duties were to blend in and see what I could overhear or uncover while feeding all the information to Mick Jasper.

  Mick Jasper. My heart did a little flutter when I saw him sitting in the chair in Burt’s office through the glass wall of windows. I’m a sucker for tall, dark and muscular, but it’s his blue eyes that are killer and jabbed me right in the heart and weakened my knees.

  I opened the door and realized clearly I was interrupting something. Something I’d describe as evil.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized and took a step back out the door while holding on to the door knob. “I’ll just wait outside,” I said to all six eyes that seemed surprised to see me.

  Burt leaned up against his desk with his arms crossed. Mick sat in the chair in front of him and Sherry, another SKUL agent who usually worked with Mick, was sitting down on the couch in the back of the room.

  “No, no.” Burt waved me in. “Come on in. Funny you are here. I was actually going to call you today.”

  “To give me my check?” I asked.

  “That too, but we were just discussing the deaths of two local women,” he said.

  “You mean those girls on the news?” I asked before I stepped back into the room and shut the door behind me.

  Suddenly I’d taken an interest, not that I was going to have any answers. I’d seen a little snip of it on the news but didn’t pay much attention to it. There were shootings all over the city. It was on the news nightly and had become one of those things you expected to hear, like the weather forecast.

  “They have one thing in common.” Burt stood up and walked around the desk.

  “And what might that be?” I asked, being nosy.

  “Me.” Mick stood up and rolled down the sleeves of his blue button down. His brows rose. “Let’s say I dated them at one time or another.”

  “Unfortunately, there is no other tie between the women and the police are looking into Mick.” Burt pushed the file on his desk toward the edge.

  “May I?” I asked to see what was inside.

  “Sir.” Sherry stepped forward. “No offense, but Maggie doesn’t have clearance and she certainly isn’t going to be on the case.”

  “No offense taken.” I put my hands up and totally wished I could give her a zit the size of a quarter on her chin or make her have an onset of grey hair that no amount of dye could cover for a few months.

  “I think that Maggie has fresh eyes and I like using her as a consultant.” Burt pushed it further toward me.

  “You’re the boss.” Sherry took the file and handed it to me. “The only thing in there are photos of the women and their information. One was a nurse’s aide and the other was a paralegal. Both from opposite sides of the tracks.” Sherry glanced over at Mick.

  “What?” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t discriminate on the women I’ve dated.”

  “I bet you don’t.” Sherry shook her head with a chuckle. “The only thing Mick does have going for him is that he has alibis for both murders.”

  “That’s why we think someone is trying
to frame Mick,” Burt said.

  “But why me?” Mick walked over to the window and looked out. “Ummm, Maggie. Your car is rolling.”

  I let out an audible groan.

  “Sir, let me look at the file and I’ll get back to you tomorrow.” I grabbed the file and ran out the door.

  I don’t know why I did it and I knew better but I continued to tap the up button on the elevator as if that was going to hurry it up. I glanced around and no one seemed to be looking. I dragged my finger under my nose and instantly appeared in the corner of the lobby.

  “Where did you come from?” Patsy’s head turned side-to-side. Her mouth dropped.

  “I slipped by you.” I headed to the door.

  “Here is your check.” She waved an envelope in the air.

  I snatched it on my way past her.

  “Thanks. I hope you feel better,” I said and darted out the door.

  Vinnie was exactly where I’d left him.

  “What on Earth did you do that for?” I asked in a snippy voice after I got in and he slammed the door behind me.

  “Maggie, you said that you were only going to be a few minutes and it was much longer than that. I was beginning to worry.” He started his engine. I flipped on his automatic switch. “When I saw Agent Jasper looking out the window, I knew if I moved he’d make some sort of comment about your old car, which by the way I do not like being referred to as old. My pistons and gears are lubed better than his insides.”

  “You have to be careful. You can’t let anyone know that you are not a normal car.” I opened the file and took a long look at the woman staring back at me from the first photo.

  She was probably younger than me by a few years, which didn’t surprise me. I could see Mick dating younger women. Which seemed to be true by looking at the women.

  Both of them had very pretty smiles that showed off brilliant white teeth, yet the way they dressed said a lot about their personalities. One was in a pant suit while the other was in jeans, tee, and Chucks.

  “Maggie, Agent Jasper believes I’m an old car and that strange things go on with me.” Vinnie drove much faster home than he did going to SKUL, which didn’t surprise me. “Besides, Agent Jasper is none of my concern. You are.”

  “SKUL is my Life’s Journey, which means that Mick Jasper is part of it too.” I dragged my finger down the paper to check out the occupations of the women.

  One of them was a legal secretary and the other was a nurse’s aide in a nursing home. Their birthdays were different, not even the same birth months. Their cars were completely different. The secretary drove a four-door Toyota, the nurse’s aide drove a motorcycle. They even lived on opposite sides of town. They had nothing in common, well. . .nothing except Mick Jasper.

  “Maggie?” Vinnie asked. “I’ve been parked in the garage for a few minutes now and you haven’t even noticed we made it home.”

  I glanced up.

  “Not that Burt has asked me to be on the case, but he did ask me to look at the file to see if there was anything that stood out.” I looked up and over the wheel. “You know, Vinnie, there is nothing that stands out to me.”

  “That makes me want to protect you more from Agent Jasper. Because of him you’ve been at gun point twice in the last six months.” Vinnie reminded me of worse times.

  “It doesn’t hurt to look into some things.” I shut the folder and ran a finger over my necklace.

  “What is it Maggie?” Vinnie asked.

  “I don’t know, Vinnie. Something is off about this. I know Mick Jasper is not a killer, but someone is trying to make it look like he did kill them.” I bit my lip and let out a sigh.

  The twinkling Christmas lights from the kitchen window caught my attention.

  “How do you know that Agent Jasper didn’t do it?” Red dots waved across Vinnie’s circuit board screen.

  “The police have established an alibi for Mick.” Mentally I prepared myself for the winter wonderland I was about to walk into.

  “He is a SKUL agent. He has a lot of contacts and he knows a lot of people.” Vinnie always looked at things from all angles, only when it came to Mick, the angle was always negative.

  “You think he actually had these women knocked off?” A chuckle escaped me. “Why would he do that?”

  “They know something about him.” Vinnie wasted no time in responding. “He had dated them. They knew him in a more intimate situation and he might’ve told them something that was classified.

  “He found out and realized what he’d told them and for the information not to come out, he killed them.” Vinnie’s words drifted off and I jumped when a pumpkin flew out the back door of my house before the door slammed shut. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Anything is possible, Maggie,” Vinnie said before I got out of the car. “You remember that now that you are part of the mortal world.”

  Chapter Three

  “Mortal world,” I murmured under my breath and looked at the smashed pumpkin lying on the concrete patio next to the pool.

  Riule crawled out from underneath Mom’s herb garden.

  Mom was in a mood and it was much easier to prepare for it before I walked in.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Riule, my mom’s black cat and familiar. I bent down and rubbed my hand down his back.

  “She’s had a rough day getting into the Christmas spirit,” Riule meowed back in words to my ears but to the mortal ears, he was simply acting like a cat.

  “We are witches.” I couldn’t help but grin before feeling sorry for him. “You’ve had to listen to her all day?”

  “All day. She’s yelling Riule this, Riule that.” He rolled his little green eyes. “When she asks for my opinion, I can’t help but throw in something that is black in color and she flies off, literally.” I knew he what he meant.

  Mom was good at jumping on her broom when the going got tough. Sometimes she’d disappear for days. It might sound a bit harsh for a mom to take off, but in our case it was good because it was time for her to cool down and not just up and move all of us like she’d done when me and Lilith were kids.

  “She screams that Christmas is green and red, not black.” He shook his head.

  A crash came from the house. In a flash, Riule had run back under the bushes.

  “Mom! We are witches not elves!” Lilith’s voice exploded out of the open kitchen window.

  “Not an elf!” Gilbert, Lilith’s rare purple macaw familiar, echoed Lilith’s displeasure.

  It was time to face the music. I couldn’t stay outside forever. I tucked the file under my arm and walked in through the back door, which led straight into the kitchen where Mom, Auntie Meme and Lilith were having a standoff.

  “Finally,” Mom threw her arms in the air. “A voice of reason.” She pointed to me. I turned to look behind me and, seeing no one, pointed to myself.

  “Me?” I looked between the three of them. “What do you have on?” I asked Mom after my eyes settled on her green shoes that were curled up on the toe with a bell on it.

  There was a tinsel hat on top of Lilith’s head. Her bangs flattened on her forehead.

  “I’m dressed as an elf to help work on the creative vision.” As Mom rotated her wrist in a circle, little sparks flew out.

  “You can’t just ‘poof’ and ‘piff’?” Auntie Meme asked with Miss Kitty, her owl familiar, perched on her shoulder. “Like this. Poof.” She lifted her right hand and then her left. A tiny lit and decorated Christmas tree appeared in her right hand. “Piff,” she said and a small laughing Santa appeared in her left hand.

  “No,” Mom gasped and pointed a finger at Auntie Meme, zapping the Santa and disintegrating him into a pile of ashes. “I want to do this the mortal way.”

  Miss Kitty spread her wings and lifted into the air, hovering over Mom like she did when Auntie Meme used her to cast a spell.

  “This is ridiculous.” I stood between them. I curled my nose at Miss Kitty and didn’t stop until she floated back down to
land on Auntie’s shoulder. “Mom, you are the one who signed up for this Christmas tour.” I turned to Lilith. “Lilith is right. We are witches. We love Christmas and all that goes with it, but it doesn’t come as natural as carving a pumpkin or flying.” I pointed to her broom that was propped up against the table. “We need to just regroup, have some spiced brew and get a plan.” I nodded toward everyone.

  “If you think I’m dressing up like an elf to help your mom’s creative flow, then you have another thing coming,” Auntie Meme warned. “Besides, what have you been doing all day while I entertained Gladys?”

  Mom’s body shifted to the left and she stuck her fists on her hips.

  “I had to put up with her annoying laugh, yappy dog, and if I had to hear her tell one more customer how she created the cakes and brag on and on about her nephew, I was going to turn her into a toad.” Auntie Meme took a step toward Mom. “Now tell me, while I kept her prying eyes out of view of the house, what did you do all day?”

  Auntie Meme was on edge. It was a tall order for Mom to ask her to keep Mrs. Hubbard busy so she could decorate without Mrs. Hubbard’s nosy spying. I’d seen it with my own eyes. Mrs. Hubbard’s family room had a perfect view of our house and into our house. She even had a pair of binoculars sitting on the floor next to her chair.

  I spoke up, “I’m just saying that maybe each of us can help Mom out somehow. She’s always been there for us.” I tried so hard to be the voice of reason.

  There was a lot of nods, um huhs, and yeps coming from Mom’s lips.

  “Have you forgotten that just a few months ago she wanted you to marry a mortal because she never thought you’d find your Life’s Journey and tried to set you up with Abram Callahan?” Just the sound of Abram’s name made my stomach hurt.

  Abram was, well had been, a longtime family friend who grew up with me on Belgravia Court. We were best friends up until recently and he’d wanted to take it to a much deeper level. Abram knew there was something special about our family after I’d brought back Boomer, his cat, to life a few times over the course of our childhood and into adulthood. Abram was a local mechanic we used to work on Vinnie. He was good at keeping his mouth shut. Unfortunately, a few months ago we had to do a memory erasing spell on him because he was getting a little too comfortable knowing our family secret and we just couldn’t trust he’d keep our secret for life.