But still, it seemed so strange that as soon as Rufus appeared, we were able to see them.
Maybe it wasn’t me with the talent, but Rufus. Perhaps because of what had happened between us, what he had done to me, I could see the magic because of him, because of some sort of tether that joined us.
I shivered. It needed to go away, these thoughts of him. But still, there was a mystery there, one that, like it or not, I was involved in.
And what about Sadie?
I nearly jumped in my seat. Her keys were still in my purse. If there was money hiding in her house or anything else that would help me pay off the debt to the wizard mafia, it would be there.
Decision made, I headed over to Sadie’s, which luckily wasn’t too far away from my own house.
When I stepped through her front door, an overwhelming sense of loss struck me. Her jacket hung by the door, her favorite bunny slippers sat by the couch, and the glossy home decor magazines she loved to read perched on the coffee table.
I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t think. All I could do was feel, and I felt abandoned, y’all. The realization that I had lost my best friend crushed me.
Moving like a zombie, I made my way over to the couch, sat down and cried for a good twenty minutes before I was able to haul myself up and start searching.
The most likely place to hide money was the bedroom closet. Clothes lay neatly piled on the bed that was made. I texted Liam, asking if the funeral home needed clothes for her, and while I waited for his reply, I set about searching.
Would you believe that every shoebox only held shoes? Sadie was the only person I knew who would actually keep shoeboxes to store her shoes. After combing through those and bags, no money could be found.
The surfaces were all clean, too. I couldn’t find hide nor hair of her phone, which still bothered me. Where the heck was it?
By that time Liam had replied, asking for me to pick out clothes for Sadie. So I returned to the closet and retrieved her favorite black leather jacket and skinny jeans. There was no way Sadie would have wanted to be put in the ground wearing polyester. My girl would have wanted to be in cotton, leggings, or skinny jeans.
So jeans it was.
The next two hours were spent riffling through the hall closet, in cupboards, drawers, even the cotton-ball box, to see if Sadie had stashed one dollar in them.
But sure enough, they were empty. The last place to search was the desk in her office. I plopped onto the chair, convinced that I would never at this point find any money, and stared at the glass-topped surface, running my fingers over the cool lid.
A notepad sat to one side with a few words jotted in Sadie’s handwriting.
Dooley’s barn 9 p.m.
I gave it a double take. Right there in front of me was proof that Sadie had gone to meet someone.
The blasted phone would tell! If only I had it.
I raked my fingers down my face, letting my nails bite into my flesh. Obviously it wouldn’t do to leave my skin scarred, but I didn’t know what else to do. The note proved she went out to meet someone. Chief Sluggs wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to convince him that Sadie had been murdered, and now he thought I was some sort of suspect.
What kind of crazy world was I living in?
Oh, and to make it all worse, Rufus, the man I hated, had shown up and he could see spells that no one else could and somehow he had dragged me into that ability.
On top of that, I didn’t even hate Rufus as much as I wanted to.
There, I admitted it. Did I trust him? No, but the idea of zapping him into the future with my magic seemed off the table. It wasn’t fair to him. Never thought I’d say that—that I felt sympathy for Rufus Mayes.
The world had changed and at the speed of light.
I grabbed the pad of paper and stuffed it in my purse.
Since there obviously wasn’t any money stashed in Sadie’s house, I didn’t see any reason to linger. So I grabbed the clothes she was to be buried in and headed for the front door.
A shadow cut across the front porch. The old wooden boards creaked and someone whispered.
The killer! Maybe they had returned to rifle through Sadie’s things. It was possible. But why were they whispering?
