The other girl stared at her like she’d grown a second head, the black smears around her eyes adding dramatic emphasis. “Tiger? How did you…?”
“I am a witch detective.” The corners of Becca’s lips twitched. She didn’t, Clara noted, mention her lunch with Gaia’s ex. “And I’m sorry if I overstepped. But you did hire me to look into what was going on, and then you said that he was still worried about you, and I saw—I might have seen—someone hanging around the shop after I left this morning.”
“That might just have been Tiger.”
Becca shook her head. “I know you said he worries too much. But maybe he’s got reason. I gather that he knew about your affair with Frank.”
“Tiger? No, he didn’t…”
Becca cut her off before she could continue. “Maybe he didn’t want you to know that he knew, but he did. I don’t know if that’s connected. But he told me he thinks there was bad blood between Margaret and her husband. Really bad.”
A shrug led Clara to believe the black-clad girl didn’t care that much about the other woman’s distress. “Frank wasn’t serious about me. He was never going to leave her.”
It wasn’t a question, and Becca didn’t answer.
Gaia acted like she had heard something, though. Kicking at a pebble, her lower lip jutting out like a toddler’s, she glanced over at her companion. “I guess I messed up, huh?”
Becca held her tongue and the two walked in silence for a bit, until Gaia stopped and turned toward Becca. “You think that’s why she tried to frame me?”
“Frame you? Did you ever, um, meet at his office?”
“No.” Gaia looked miserable. “I went down to the lot once, but I didn’t like the sleazy guys he worked with. Is that where he…?” For a moment, the death of her former paramour seemed to register, before she brushed it away as if it were a mere annoyance. “No, I didn’t mean…that. Poor guy. Just that she tried to set me up for stealing.” She bit down on the words. “Why she told you, told everyone, that I was taking money out of the register.”
“And you weren’t?” Becca’s voice was as soft as kitten fur. “Not even as a loan?”
“Me? No.” Gaia scoffed at the idea. “I don’t care about money. If I did, you think I would have stayed in that dead-end job? Besides, Tiger’s always telling me I can work with him. He makes pretty decent money.”
“Do you like to ride?” Clara couldn’t tell if Becca was curious or slightly miffed. The little calico found herself relieved by the idea that the pale messenger still harbored feelings for this pale and painted girl.
“What? No, in sales. I’m good behind a counter,” she said, waving off any evidence to the contrary. Even as she did, the reality of her situation seemed to hit home. “Not that I’m going to get any kind of a reference now,” she moped.
“It does seem like maybe it was time to move on.” Becca spoke as gently as she could. “But you said you weren’t even sure you were fired.”
Another shrug. “I don’t know for certain. I mean, it’s Margaret’s shop, but I think her sister is really behind it. She’s the reason Margaret hired me.”
“She is?”
Margaret’s words came back to Clara as she watched her person take this in.
Gaia stretched out her black-clad arms. “I guess I look the part. Or I thought that’s what was happening anyway. Margaret said something about her sister telling her to get ‘that girl,’ like she had me in mind, special. Only I think Elizabeth had it out for me for a while. Just last week, I heard her telling Margaret that she’d made a mistake. That she’d hired the wrong girl. Actually, she kind of liked you.”
Gaia regarded Becca with a gimlet eye.
“Me?”
Gaia nodded. “She must have seen you when we talked. Or maybe it was when you came in to hang up that flyer. Anyway, she was all excited that you’d come back to the shop. Wanted Margaret to reach out to you right away.”
Becca bit her lip, and Clara knew she had to be thinking about Elizabeth and her sister. Margaret had reached out to Becca, all right, but as a client. And Becca had sent her away.
“Anyway, I don’t know for sure what’s going on, only that she came in and told me to get lost. That I was gone. But I don’t know. Truth is, I think she’s going senile. That old bat couldn’t even get your name right. She kept saying she was waiting for Clara.”
“Well, that’s curious.” Now it was Becca’s turn to look distracted. But Gaia didn’t give her a chance to think it through.
“Wait a minute.” She reached out for Becca’s hand again. “Something doesn’t make sense.”
Becca shook her head, waiting.
“If Tiger was only warning me because he wanted me to be more careful around those Cross witches, then why is he still worried? I mean, it’s not like I’m still going to see Frank. Unless…” Even under her smudged makeup, the goth girl’s pallor was obvious.
“You don’t think that Margaret, that that crazy lady… Or maybe she’s working with her sister. Maybe they did do something to Frank, and now they’re going to come for me.”
“But you just said that Elizabeth basically threw you out of the shop.”
“Yeah, she did. But maybe she did it because she knows something—something about Margaret.” Gaia held Becca’s wrist in a death grip as she leaned in close. “She wants me gone before I can find out what really happened. Or before her crazy sister can kill me, too.”
Chapter 18
“We’re going to the police.” It was a statement, not a question. Still, Gaia tried to wriggle out.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she quailed. “I was being silly. Tiger always says I overreact.”
“Tiger should be coming with us, too.” Becca pulled her phone out.
“No, please.” Gaia reached for her hand, but it was a plea not a grab for the device. “Let’s leave him out of this. I’ll go with you.”
Becca thought for a moment, then accepted with a quick nod. It must have taken all her self-control not to hold the other girl’s arm, Clara thought as she turned and started back into the square. At the end of the block, she slowed. The brick building that housed the shop and the Cross’s apartment lay straight ahead.
“Why don’t we duck behind the store?” Becca asked, turning toward Gaia. “Just in case.”
Gaia managed a wan smile in return, and the two turned down the side street that would take them past the back of Charm and Cherish. This was a boon for Clara, as the smaller one-way was both less trafficked and, at this hour, shadowed by the block of buildings. The lack of light appeared to have affected the two young women, however. As they passed the neighboring structures, they walked in silence, each lost in her own thoughts.
Once they neared the small lot in the rear of Charm and Cherish, Becca paused to look up the alley that ran alongside. But the narrow passageway was empty now except for shadows. Still, Becca was so preoccupied that she almost missed Gaia’s sudden intake of breath.
“What?” Becca turned to her.
The other girl appeared frozen in place, as if her glittery sneakers were glued to the sidewalk.
“I can’t,” she said. “I really can’t, Becca.”
She was staring ahead at the tiny lot. Only one car was parked there now, a battered tan Toyota that was rumbling as it belched out clouds of blue smoke. Over the top, Becca could see a wiry head of grey hair.
“Elizabeth.” Becca sighed. The older of the two sisters had clearly just exited the shop, that gunmetal gray door propped open behind her. The light from the small window just past the door shone down through the shadow, highlighting the silver in her hair. “Well, she’s probably just taking out the trash.”
Clara peered up at her person. Even from here it was apparent the older woman was speaking to someone in the car. Gaia must have seen it too, because she emitted a faint groan.