Wicked Ways: Death at the DuMond (A Cozy Witch Mystery Book 1) (21 page)

I pulled the stone out of my pocket. “Why isn’t the stone working now?”

“Because I did a blocking spell,” she said. “You really aren’t any good at this witchcraft thing, are you?”

“Apparently, neither are you,” I said.

“My magic works. It made me a star. The youngest champion ever to win Wimmelsdorf,” she said, proudly.

“But it backfired, didn’t it?”

“All magic has a cost,” Charlotte said. “Mine was a knee injury.” Her eyes lost their sparkle. A grim pallor washed over her face.

Charlotte was lost in thought for a moment. Sweat was beading on her forehead. Life as she knew it was over. She would be the subject of endless gossip among her society friends. The public would turn on her. She’d be remembered as a murderer, not a tennis superstar. She wouldn’t last a week in a super max prison, and she knew it.

She eyed the tray of cupcakes. “I can make all of this go away.” Charlotte picked up a cupcake. “Promise me something.” Her voice was grave. “My reputation stays intact. No one ever needs to know the truth. Not even Elliott. Especially Elliott.”

I nodded.

“I do love him, you know. It wasn’t all about the money.” Tears were streaming down her cheek.
 

“Did you kill Roger DuMond as well?”

She looked at me, aghast. “Absolutely not. He was a wonderful man. Somebody had to avenge his murder.”
 

“Are you saying that Mrs. DuMond killed him?”

Charlotte nodded. “I think knowing that made it easier for me to do what I did. It made me feel like what I was doing wasn’t so terribly wrong.” She stared at the cupcake. “Am I really so bad?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to.
 

Charlotte peeled the wrapper from the cupcake and gobbled it down. In fact, she ate the whole tray.

CHAPTER 33

BY THE TIME Gibbs arrived, Bancroft was once again strolling through the hallway. The cupcakes must have worked their evil magic on Charlotte. A witch’s spell dies with the witch. Banksy was overjoyed to be free again.

I had recorded my entire conversation with Charlotte on my phone. I gave a copy to Gibbs. It was enough to absolve Jake of any wrongdoing.

Elliott was devastated at the loss of Charlotte. Everyone close to him had died in the past several months. I felt sorry for him.

Things were getting back to normal. If you could ever call things around the DuMond
normal
. I still had that rent situation to work out. And the looming consequences of magic. The DuMond had become a hotbed of supernatural activity. It would surely register as a huge spike on the radar of the League of Sorcery. And from what Porter had said, they didn’t look kindly on unauthorized uses of magic.

That afternoon, a messenger delivered a package. It was a bubble wrapped envelope containing a USB drive and a key. There was also a piece of paper with a four digit code. 

The messenger was a young guy with brown hair that fell into his eyes. I don’t know how he could see anything through it. He kept flicking the hair out of his eyes, but it would only fall back in an instant later.

“Freddy said if I didn’t hear from him by 4pm every day, that I was supposed to deliver this to you. It’s a day late, sorry,” he said.” I got busy yesterday and kind of forgot about it.”

The USB drive was a backup of the audio recordings. I sure could have used this yesterday, I thought. I listened to the entire recording. It wasn’t long. Maybe thirty seconds total. Just one clip of Mr. Giovanni ordering a hit. The same clip that Falco had played back at the grain silo. It wasn’t nearly the mountain of evidence that Freddy Stryker had claimed it to be. Falco had taken Freddy’s bluff and ran with it.

The key was to a private storage unit—
Pete’s Climate Controlled Self Storage
. Stamped on the plastic keychain was a unit number. Banksy and I went to check it out. At the main entrance, I punched in the access code on the keypad. The glass door buzzed and clicked, and I pulled it open. Bancroft was already inside by that point.

We wandered through rows and rows of corrugated orange, pull-down doors. We finally found unit number 323. I put the key in the padlock and twisted. The lock clicked open. 

My eyes scanned the hallway. I wanted to make sure no one was around. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d find inside. I reached down, grabbed the handle, and lifted the corrugated door. The storage unit was full—floor to ceiling full. 

There was barely an inch clearance for the door. The storage unit was five feet deep, ten feet wide, and ten fee tall. Crisp, clean $100 bills were stacked neatly.
 

Money has a distinctive smell. The paper isn’t really paper at all. It’s a cotton/linen blend, with silk fibers. Most of the smell comes from the unique blend of inks. I was looking at several million dollars in cash. The sight was beautiful. The smell was intoxicating. It was more than enough to cover my rent, tuition, and Mom’s medical bills.

This was all of Freddy Stryker’s ill-gotten gains. I remember Freddy saying he had several stashes of cash. How many other storage units full of cash were there in the city?

I didn’t know what to do. I stared at the cash. I’d never seen that much money before. I don’t think most people ever see that amount of cash in one place. Except maybe bankers. But I was torn. Stryker had done a lot of bad things to get this money. I was going to have to think long and hard about this.

What would
you
do with all that money?

The End
 

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I loved writing it. As you know, reviews are the lifeblood of indie authors. Please consider rating and reviewing.

--Much love, Ava

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