A Clean Sweep

  by

  Sara Bourgeois

  Chapter One

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Annika said as I drained another margarita. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  Remy and Brody were at the archives doing whatever they did there while Annika and I had a girls’ night. Remy had looked like he hadn’t wanted to leave me in the state I was in, but Annika assured him she could handle it and pushed them out the door.

  Thorn had left the night before to go see his ex-wife with promises to call me as soon as he could. I hadn’t heard from him much. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he’d said he’d get to the bottom of it and make things right. Whatever that meant.

  “I’m not joking. Apparently, she showed back up in town with a kid that looks just like Thorn.”

  “I mean, that doesn’t mean it’s his,” Annika offered.

  “Given that he could just get a DNA test, I don’t see why she would lie,” I said.

  “Because some women are able to convince men not to get a DNA test,” Annika said. “Maybe she’s one of those super manipulative types. I could put a curse on her.”

  “We can’t do that. She’s the mother of a child. Probably Thorn’s child. Oh, gawd,” I said and took Annika’s margarita from her hand. “Can you even imagine what it’s going to be like if they get back together and stay here?”

  “They’re not getting back together,” Annika said. “Did he say something like that? That’s crazy.”

  “He didn’t, but I’m just… I don’t know. I’m all messed up about this. I mean, if they can work things out, isn’t getting back together what’s best for the little girl? Wouldn’t that be the right thing for him to do?”

  “People don’t do stuff like that,” Annika said. “They don’t just drop everything and get back together for their kids. This isn’t the 1950s”

  “Thorn would do something like that. He does the right thing, Annika. That’s who he is. You know it as well as I do,” I said.

  “Let’s make another pitcher of margaritas,” Annika said as she stood up and pulled me off the couch. “We’ll make enough for the guys too. I’m sure they’ll be done with their research soon. I doubt Remy will stay away for any longer than he absolutely has to.”

  “I don’t know that it’s a good idea for me to go getting drunk off my butt right now,” I said.

  “Why not? If any time is a good time for you to get drunk off your butt, I’d say it’s now.”

  The next morning, I woke up with a pounding headache. Only after a few seconds of lying in bed wishing I could go back to sleep, I realized the pounding wasn’t in my head. It was someone pounding on my front door.

  My breath caught in my throat as I thought back to Grey banging away on the garage just before dawn. The garage that now stood half-finished at the top of my driveway. Could it be him back to finish me off?

  Surely that wouldn’t be the case. Meri had whipped up a spell that would let us see if it was him even if he was in a different form. I said I should go after him so he couldn’t kill anyone else.

  Meri said I should not go on a cross-country trek to find a cursed shifter serial killer. He said it was too risky, and that I might reveal to the federal government that I had powers they would like to obtain for their own purposes. But at least if he came back, Grey wouldn’t be able to hide his identity from me.

  The pounding on the door started again. I reached behind me to Meri’s usual sleeping spot and found him gone.

  That mystery was solved seconds later when he streaked into the room and jumped on the bed. “It’s a bunch of people in baggy clothes drinking coffee and carrying filming equipment,” Meri said. “Not a serial killer. Just annoying.”

  “What?” I asked and pushed myself out of bed.

  I thought about getting dressed, but instead grabbed the robe I’d hung on the back of the bedroom door. After I’d tied the coral terry fabric around myself, I made my way out of the bedroom and down the stairs to the front door.

  Sure enough, when I opened it, there was a motley crew of young men with one woman in the back. “Cool hair,” she said from behind the guys in front of her.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Uh, can I help you?”

  “Actually, we were hoping no one was here,” the one in the front with the Harry Potter glasses and black goatee said.

  “What?” I asked and considered slamming the door.

  “Let me start over. I’m Kurt Holmes,” Goatee said. “You might have heard of me.”

  “I have no idea who you are,” I said dryly.

  “From the show Ghost Seekers,” the one in the back with long curly blond hair and a Grateful Dead t-shirt spoke up.

  “We wanted to investigate this house,” Kurt said. “We were kind of hoping it was abandoned.”

  “Does it look abandoned?” I asked.

  No one responded.

  “I mean, my car is parked in the driveway,” I said and waved toward it.

  “We thought it was just an old broken-down car left behind by whoever lived here last,” the guy with the camera in his hands said.

  “My car is not that bad,” I said.

  “So is this place haunted?” the tall one with a touch of premature gray at his temples asked as if he hadn’t really been listening to the rest of the conversation.

  I knew that Coventry got its fair share of paranormal investigators because the ley line attracted sensitive people, but I had never heard of a ghost hunting show filming here. I had no idea what the proper protocol was for dealing with them, and I’d just woken up.

  “Are you guys planning on doing your show about Coventry?” I asked with a yawn.

  “We are, but we’re waiting for the courthouse to open so we can get a filming permit,” Kurt said.

  “Right, and you thought you’d stop and investigate some spooky places or like scout locations or something while you wait,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Grateful Dead said.

  “Okay, well, across the street is a very old and historic cemetery. You can’t see it from here, but just go over the fence and you’ll find it. Go wait over there while I get dressed in something other than my robe and I’ll see if I can help you,” I said.

  “Really, an old cemetery hidden in the woods?” Kurt asked. He rubbed his hands together with glee like a kid on Christmas morning. It was actually a little bit endearing.

  “Yep. The oldest part is right on the other side of the fence. If you keep going through the tree line on the other side, there’s a much newer section. None of it’s used anymore and hasn’t been for a long time,” I said. “I’ll come over there as soon as I can.”

  I shut the door and started up the stairs to get dressed. Meri appeared at the top of the steps on the landing.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked. “You can’t let the Ghost Squeakers in here.”

  “Ghost Seekers,” I said as Meri rolled his eyes at me. “I don’t know, but I don’t feel like I should just leave them wandering around Coventry knocking on doors. So I’ll take them to the courthouse. I don’t imagine the witches on the town council are going to be too pleased about this.”

  “You’re going to present the Ghost Squeakers to the town council?” Meri asked. “For what? They can’t film a show here. We’d be exposed to the whole world. We should tell them we’re taking them somewhere haunted and lock them in the Skeenbauer Crypt.”

  “Meri, we can’t lock them in the crypt with the scary dead witches just because they heard Coventry was haunted and want to do their show here. That wouldn’t be right,” I said as I walked past him to get dressed.

  “We could drive lead them to the edge of town and make them forget Coventry exists.”

  “That would only work until they found whatever information brought them here again,” I said from my room as I tugged on my jeans.

  “Well, there has to be something. The witches of Coventry can make every human in this town willfully ignore the magic around them. I don’t understand why these ghost hunters and paranormal investigators keep showing up here. Now we’ve got ones that want to film a show.”

  “The good news is that so far, the magic that keeps the human residents of Coventry ignoring the magic around them works on the visitors too. None of them ever really find anything because they ignore it too.”

  “Yeah, but these people have cameras and equipment, Brighton,” Meri said. “We can’t make cameras willfully ignore what’s right in front of them.”

  “We still have to let the council decide,” I said.

  “No, we don’t. The town council is half human, and they aren’t going to see a problem with this. The half of the council that are witches will have their hands tied. We can stop this now.”

  “I don’t see a way that we can without possibly hurting innocent people, Meri. We’ll do our best to protect the town, but I’m taking them to the council,” I said.

  “What is going on?” Brody asked.

  He stepped out of what was the spare bedroom, but had sort of become his bedroom. My brother ran his hand through his tousled hair and scratched his stomach sleepily.

  “How did the pounding on the door not wake you?” I asked.

  “It did, but I heard you get up. Figured you’d get the door,” he said.

  “What if it had been a killer or something?”

  “Then you’ve got Meri here,” he said and waved his hand in the cat’s direction. “But don’t worry, I totally would have come to your aid, big sis.�

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  “I don’t need your help anyway,” I said with a chuckle. “So there are some ghost hunters in town that do a show called Ghost Seekers. That’s who was pounding on the door. Anyway, I’m going to take them to the town council. They want a filming permit.”

  “Ugh, that show is ridiculous,” Brody said.

  “Let me guess. I’ve never watched it, but if you don’t like it that must mean the historical stuff they present is inaccurate,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Brody agreed.

  “Except that everything you know about history is incorrect,” I said. “You know that from being here.”

  “Oh, crap. You’re right,” Brody said and turned on his heels.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to go binge watch the show again,” he said. “If they get the permit to film here, I’ll need to speak with them about their sources. What if I’ve been wrong all along, and the stuff they present is all based on clandestine but accurate sources.”

  “All right. Call me if you need me,” I said as I headed down the stairs.

  My stomach rumbled when I got to the bottom. My belly wanted breakfast, but there was no time for such concerns. I didn’t want to leave the Ghost Seekers milling around the old graveyard for too long.

  “Ahem,” Meri said as I put my hand on the front door knob. “You might be willing to ignore your hunger, but I signed up for no such thing.”

  “Right, sorry,” I said. “Let me grab you a quick can of tuna, and then I’m off.”

  “I’d prefer smoked salmon,” Meri said.

  “Of course, you would,” I countered. “Don’t worry, I’ve got some.”

  While he ate his salmon, I snarfed down a slice of cheese followed by a spoonful of peanut butter. A big spoonful. It wasn’t much, but I knew from experience the combo would hold me for a while. It was my go-to breakfast back in the city when I was late for work.

  Once Meri was fed, I headed across the street to the old cemetery. Two of the six Ghost Seekers were in the old part of the graveyard, and I startled them when I arrived. I could only guess that the other three had wandered off to the newer section.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your names,” I said to the female crew member and one of the guys who hadn’t really said anything when they were all on my porch. There was Kurt, the guy with the camera, Grateful Dead, and the one with a touch of gray hair. And there was this guy.

  “Bobby Lucas,” he said and stuck out his hand.

  “And I’m Rachel Boggs,” the woman said as I shook Bobby’s hand.

  “Sorry, we’re not used to interacting with people who have no idea who we are,” Bobby said. “We should have done better with our introductions.”

  “Let’s see,” Rachel said. “You know Kurt’s name. The guy in the Grateful Dead shirt, and he will always be wearing a Grateful Dead shirt, is Link Meyers. It’s seriously all he owns. Toto James is our main camera man. Toto is a nickname.”

  “He’s from Kansas?” I guessed.

  “Exactly,” Rachel said. “None of us know his real name either.”

  “And Chris Gather is the brain,” Bobby said. “The guy with the early gray. Chris is our research assistant and does whatever else we need when he’s not knee-deep in online investigation or nose-deep in a book.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “Even if it was a bit unexpected. So where is the rest of your crew? The courthouse will be opening for the day. We should head that way.”

  “They are over in the newer part of the cemetery doing EVP readings,” Rachel said. “Bobby and I were trying to get some photos of these headstones so Chris could research the names later.”

  “Why don’t you round everyone up and I’ll meet you at the front of the courthouse. Unless you don’t know where it is and need to follow me?”

  “Nope. We saw it on our way in,” Rachel said.

  “Besides, we have GPS if we didn’t,” Bobby added.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t count on your GPS around here,” I said. “They don’t work well in Coventry.”

  “Oh,” Bobby said with a smile. “Must be that ley line business Chris was talking about. Paranormal interference with our equipment already.” He rubbed his hands together. “This is going to be good.”

  “I don’t know about paranormal. More like a run of the mill magnetic anomaly. Nothing supernatural about it,” I lied.

  “We’ll have to see,” Rachel said skeptically. “But that’s what we’re here for.”

  “Great,” I said, not wanting to comment or lie further. “I’ll see you at the courthouse then.”

  I pulled into one of the parking spaces out in front of the courthouse in my car that the Ghost Seekers had assumed was just a broken-down, abandoned vehicle. Their van pulled in close to me a minute later.

  There weren’t many people around the square at that time of day, but the ones that were rubber-necked at the newcomers. It didn’t help that Ghost Seekers was painted across both sides of their van in huge red letters that looked as though they were dripping blood.

  “Ah. The Skeenbauer and Tuttlesmith statue,” Chris said as we walked past it. “The two founding clans. I’ve read rumors that they are actually witches. Family covens.”

  “Of course,” I said over my shoulder. “A town founded and run by women so they have to be witches. They couldn’t possibly have just been strong women.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it,” Chris said quickly.

  “Let’s just see what the council has to say about a filming permit,” was my only answer. “They should all be here, but I’m not sure how long you’ll have to wait. They don’t assemble for things at the drop of the hat.”

  “I told you we should have applied for the permit in advance,” Rachel said, but I wasn’t sure where she’d directed her complaint.

  “We’ve been over this,” Kurt said. “We weren’t planning on coming here until next season, Rachel.”

  “You weren’t coming to Coventry until your next season?” I asked. “So why did you decide to come early?”

  “The last place we were going to go didn’t, eh…” Kurt stopped and ran his hand through his hair. “It didn’t work out.”

  “Something you guys did?”

  “No. I mean, we never even went there. It happened the day before we were supposed to start filming,” Toto said. “A place not that far from here. You might have heard of it. Pine Grove? It’s an old summer camp. Anyway, there were a bunch of murders there recently. The whole place is off limits for the time being, and we’ve got a production schedule to stick to.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’ve heard of Pine Grove, but I had no idea that happened. That’s too bad.”

  “More ghosts for us when we do get around to filming there,” Grateful Dead said.

  “Link,” Chris chastised. “Don’t be like that.”

  “Sorry, man,” Link said sheepishly. “But it’s true.”

  “Let’s just go find out about your filming permit,” I said.

  I detected that a bickering session had been on the horizon, and even though I really didn’t have anything better to do, I didn’t want to spend my time listening to the Ghost Seekers have it out in front of the courthouse. My plan worked, though, and they followed me inside silently. No doubt taking in their surroundings. I was just glad the specter that frequently appeared to me in the top floor window had been a no-show that day.

  Hopefully it stayed that way when I took the group up to the top floor to speak with the members of the council. Everyone stepped onto the elevator except Bobby.

  “I’ll wait for the next one,” he said. “Top floor, right?”

  “I’ll wait with you,” Rachel said, but her voice was tinged with annoyance. I could have sworn she rolled her eyes too.

  “Yeah. Top floor,” I said. “But come right up. I don’t want you to get caught wandering around the courthouse unescorted.”

  “Don’t worry,” Bobby said. “I’m not trying to sneak around and investigate this building. Though I would love to investigate it.”

  “He just doesn’t like enclosed spaces,” Rachel added.

  “All right,” I said and punched the button for the top floor. “See you guys at the top.”

  As soon as the elevator doors closed, I got a bad feeling. I’m not sure what it was about, but the only thing I could think of was that the elevator would open and that hideous specter that was always watching me from the top floor would be there waiting.

 

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