Page 34 of A Witchy Spell Ride
“Maybe you’re not,” I countered, soft enough that it could be mistaken for patience. “He was inside when you were here. He left this with you in the building. He wants you to feel him. You going home alone gives him the next rung on his ladder.”
For a heartbeat, she looked like she might tell me to go to hell. Then she exhaled through her nose, steady. “Briar’s,” she said. “Fine.”
Briar flashed me a quick don’t get cocky look.
While Cross gathered feeds and Bones disappeared toward the back with the crowbar and a flashlight, I walked the sales floor again, tracing the route a man would take if he had thirtyseconds and an ego. Door. Dead zone. Counter. Petal. Out. Turn the felt triangle with a fingertip on the way in, leave the note, tuck the petal where she’ll find it later, a second shock and slip back through a space he’s timed to the beat of the street.
I checked the bell housing again, then went to the back door. Chalk line clean. Hinge screw dust undisturbed. The hair laid across the latch new, too neat to be accidental. Briar’s work. It was intact. Which meant he’d used the front.
Back at the counter, I pulled out my burner and scrolled to the photos of the sedan I’d mirrored off a reflection two nights ago. I set the phone face down on the counter so the screen wouldn’t glare. Reaper shifted closer without being obvious. Selene stayed where she was, arms folded under her jacket like she was holding herself still.
“Two more passes this morning?” Reaper asked.
“None I saw,” I said. “He parked last night, just out of range, driver visible in the lamplight reflection. Ballcap. Beard. Late twenties to mid-thirties. Calm.”
“License?”
“Dummy tags,” I said. “Dealership shell. We’ll get the VIN when we get the car.”
“We’re not waiting to get the car,” Reaper said.
“No,” I agreed. “We’re going to make the car come to us.”
Briar clapped once, too loud for the quiet. “Okay. Agenda. One: Cross runs footage. Two: Bones checks exits and sits in the alley.Three: I take Selene home and we nest like raccoons. Four: Ghost positions watchers. Five: Reaper pretends he’s not about to turn the Quarter into a crater.”
Reaper gave her a look that would’ve made a lesser woman burst into flames. Briar grinned and blew him a kiss. The corner of his mouth twitched, the only sign he wasn’t entirely stone.
Cross’s phone pinged. “First video incoming.” He angled the screen so Reaper and I could watch. The gallery feed showed the block in pale color, time-stamp clean. We scrubbed back an hour. Tourists. A busker. A delivery truck double-parked and swearing. Then at 10:38, a man in a dark hoodie paused across from the shop, head turned slightly away. He didn’t look up. He didn’t look at the camera. He rocked on his heels, hands in pockets. He waited thirty-two seconds. Then he walked on.
“Rewind,” I said. Cross jogged the feed back and paused at the twenty-second mark. “There.” I pointed at the reflection in the gallery window — a sliver of the shop door. The bell didn’t move. The door didn’t open. Not then.
“Fast-forward twenty seconds,” I said.
We watched the reflection again. The faintest blur at the base of the door. The tiniest tilt of the bell. Almost nothing. But there.
Cross exhaled. “Bell’s muffled. The door opens two centimeters. No one enters the frame.”
“Enough for a hand,” I said. “Enough to place a note on a counter if you’ve got reach and gall.”
Reaper’s voice went iron. “Which means he tested the latch yesterday or the day before. Which means he’s been touching this place longer than today.”
Selene’s eyes were on the video. She didn’t blink. She didn’t sway. She just saw. Whatever denial she’d been using to keep breathing fell out of her chest and onto the tile where we could all hear it.
I looked at her, really looked and I didn’t see a victim. I saw a woman calculating the cost of telling the truth. Then she squared her shoulders and did something that hit me like a strike I never saw coming.
She said, “What do you need me to do?”
Notsave me.Notfix it.Notmake it stop.
What do you need me to do.
“Routine,” I said. “But noisy. You leave with Briar at five, not six. You take the long way. You stop at the river where we can cover long sightlines. You go to her place. You don’t open the door for anyone. You do not and I need you to hear me, you do not answer any message that feels like it knows you. No late-night knocks. Noaccidental deliveries."
She nodded once. “And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” I said, “we walk him into daylight.”
Briar squeezed her hand. Cross packed his gear. Bones texted me a photo of the alley hinge with the caption clean. Reaper stood still as a statue and then moved his fingers once againsthis thigh, the signal he gives when he decides to let a plan go forward that isn’t his.
