Didi kept two cars between us at all times.
The van meandered through North Amberford’s back streets, took a left at a gas station, and headed toward a neighborhood I didn’t recognize.
“Nigel, can you track a white van heading east on Birch Road?” I said into the comms as the vehicle disappeared around a corner.
“Already on it,” the boogeyman responded. There was a short silence. “Street cameras have them turningonto Autumn Crescent.” He paused, his tone turning puzzled. “That’s a residential area. Mostly young families.”
My wolf’s unease prickled my skin. What business did four members of a disgraced coven have in this kind of neighborhood?
Didi’s car crawled onto Autumn Crescent. The street was lined with modest houses, chain-link fences, and the universal suburban markers of ordinary life—sprinklers on lawns, a basketball hoop in a driveway, a kid’s bicycle abandoned on a sidewalk.
The van slowed and pulled to a stop outside a single-story house with blue siding and a tidy front yard. There was a line of cars parked on the road opposite it.
Didi cruised past without stopping and pulled over farther up the road. We watched in the side mirrors as the Marchefords climbed out and began unloading the van.
Confusion danced through me from my wolf. My gaze locked on the front of the house.
There were balloons tied to the mailbox. A cluster of them in garish pink and purple, bobbing gently in the breeze.
I started to get a sinking feeling. “Does anyone else see the?—”
“Balloons on the mailbox.” Didi’s tone had shifted from suspicious to perplexed. “Yes.”
The front door of the house opened. A woman in jeans and a flour-dusted aprongreeted the Marchefords with a harried smile and ushered them inside. She didn’t look alarmed.
In fact, she looked relieved.
Gavin lowered his camera. “That doesn’t look like somebody welcoming a coven of dark witches into her home.”
As if to confirm this theory, the younger Marcheford reemerged from the van carrying one final item. He hefted it onto his shoulder with a grunt and headed for the house.
It was a box that honked when he adjusted his grip.
The front door opened again and the stocky Marcheford stepped out. He’d removed his work jacket. Underneath, he was wearing a shirt covered in bright polka dots.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out something round and red, and stuck it on his nose.
Bo wagged his tail hesitantly and pressed his face against the glass so hard his breath formed a perfect circle of fog.
“Is that a clown?”
17
PARTY TRICKS
I stared.
The stocky Marcheford adjusted his clown nose with thick fingers and stared down at it cross-eyed for a moment before squaring his shoulders and marching back inside the house like a man who had lost a bet and was honoring it with grim resignation.
The door closed behind him.
Silence filled the car.
“I have so many questions,” Gavin mumbled.
Didi gripped the steering wheel with both hands, her expression cycling through what appeared to be the five stages of professional bewilderment. She reached the acceptance stage with visible effort.
“I’m picking up zero magical signatures,” she said finally, her tone grim. “Absolutely nothing. Whatever they’re doing in there, it’s not witchcraft.”
