Marvin grinned.
Sandra stifled her desire to whack him with the magazine she always carried. That violent action was her undercover persona’s, not her own, but she had to confess, even if only to herself and God, that smacking Marvin gave her a deep and abiding pleasure, regardless of his well spent wealth.
Finally Marvin gave in, and said, “We were able to retrieve the laptop Zeddie smuggled in, and with it, Mable got us into the basement garage. We saw the whole place and managed to also get into the utility closet where the linens are delivered.” His eyes brows waggled suggestively, “Where we got in a little hanky-panky too.”
“We nearly got caught,” Mable said, clearly pleased at having evaded detection, “but with the laptop, I was able to redirect attention away from the closet.”
“I do not want to know any details of what you were doing in the utility closet,” Sandra said firmly. She got up to make hot water for more tea.
“Aw,” Marvin said. “You woulda been so proud of Mable’s flexibility.”
Sandra blew out an exasperated breath but did not turn around.
“With the new laptop, and thanks to my sweetie pie’s gift for destroying surveillance equipment, I can do so much now.” Mable gushed. “I wish Zeddie had been more amenable to getting it for me sooner.”
“We had to build up his trust,” Dani said. “Better late than never. What did you see?”
Mable
Mable watched Sandra.She was better today. She was less tense, less fidgety. Harold must really be recovering. In her off time, Mable had researched ways to turn Harold back to human, but … there was nothing in the databanks, even on the Dark-Witch-Web, (the dark web for black witch groups) that showed her a spell for another practitioner to return Harold to human. It had to be the practitioner who turned him in the first place. A third party couldn’t force a cursed person’s return to human shape. And Sandra, well Sandra hated and feared her power so much she had never been able to pull up her gift.
The guilt ridden former preacher stared out the window at the petting zoo, which could be seen from Marvin’s window. Mable knew that if Sandra had her way, she would live in the pen with Harold, her motives all mixed together, from self-loathing, to grief and love, to some form of penance.
Mable turned on the smuggled-in laptop, listening with half an ear to Marvin, who was still explaining about their big adventure. It had been far more dangerous than they had expected. She was never one to turn away from a little fun and games, but last night they had been close to getting caught by people who, it was likely, had no fear of committing crimes.
“While we were in the basement,” Marvin said, as if it had been wonderful, “some men came in through the overhead door, driving a white truck. It looked a lot like the one in front of Building Z. The men were wearing white hazmat suits, like you described, and they moved a man from this building into the truck and whisked him away.”
“Is anyone else missing?” Dani asked.
“We don’t know,” Mable said, patting her hair back from her face. It had been four weeks since her last haircut and style and she really needed her roots done. “He was male, short, and heavyset, but we never got a look at his face.” Partially because they had been bent over an upturned laundry cart when the garage door opened, but that was another story entirely.
Most people were never hit with magic gifts, and few were cursed with a big ball of energy late in life, but some of the older students at The Sevens had been cursed hard, like Buck and the other missing geezers from Table J. When they arrived, there had been nine inmates on the Big Hitters list, including Marvin and Dani, the missing people at Table J, including Buck and a ninety year old woman who loved to knit, named Emogene Smathers, and a man from Table B, named Richard D. Richards, who fit the physical description of the man they saw wheeled away. Big hitters were the ones who could help save the planet. Or make big bucks for someone in the darker world of money laundering or drug-running … or power harvesting. But other big hitters had disappeared over the three years prior.
Mable entered a line of code and hit ENTER. A database opened and Mable could have squealed in delight. She had found a way in to the log of new patients at Building Z.
“News,” she said. “The missing geezers are not runaways or dead. We have five new admissions to Building Z in the last twenty-four hours.” She looked at her crimes-solving partners. “I’m betting they were drugged, carted away, and are now in lockdown and unconscious.”
Dani ground out, “Our current theory was right. The power of magic practitioners is being harvested for profit, and against their will.”
“Yeah,” Mable said. “And now that I have a computer on site, I can track everyone and figure things out.”
“Can you get in to all the records?” Dani asked.
Mable’s fingers flew over the keyboard, her eyes searching the security code for the weakness that had to be there.Hadto be.Hadto be.Hadto be. “Ohhh. There you are,” she whispered. And then, the firewall snapped up again. She cussed softly.
Marvin chuckled and rubbed her shoulders.
Dani started again, “Have you—”
Mable glared at her. “Stop. Before you ask, yes, I think I can get into the security system here in this building, but I’ll have to be really careful not to leave traces, so don’t ask for the moon. And no, I haven’t yet found a way to penetrate the electronic security at Building Z. I think I need to go old-school and hardwire itthere. Inside Building Z.”
Everyone looked down at their drinks.
Marvin took her hands off her laptop and squeezed her fingers to get her to relax. He was a comforting man, and it was the little gestures like this that told her how much he loved her. She squeezed back.
Marvin said, “More important is what the warden told the drivers of the white truck.”
“I got it on tape,” Mable said.
