The max porter box set, p.31
The Max Porter Box Set, page 31
“Something like that.” Max scurried down the ladder. “Still clear?”
“Yup, but I wouldn’t think you got much more time. It can’t take that long for this lady to get a box from a room.”
“It’s a big house, but I think you’re right.”
Max moved toward the stacks near the far wall but stopped. He had been an idiot. When Lane snatched the journal from him, she didn’t replace it neatly in the spot it came from. She didn’t want him looking at it. She brought it to the library. But hiding it amongst books here would have been obvious when she knew he would be coming back to the house until the case had ended. If she really didn’t want him to see the journal, she would make sure he could never stumble upon it again.
Perhaps there was a secret floorboard or a wall panel, but he didn’t have time to search for that. Leaning back he tried to think of where he might hide a special book. He crossed his arms and lowered his head. That’s when he saw that he had been resting on the edge of the oversized desk.
“Seriously?” he said.
Max rushed around to the opposite side and tried the drawers. Two on the right side opened with ease. One contained files and the other had pens, envelopes, staples, and other supplies. On the left side, Max found a top drawer filled with an appointment book and more clerical materials. Beneath the drawer, he saw a cabinet door — locked.
“Hurry up,” PB said. “I hear voices.”
Max opened the drawer on the right and shuffled things around until he saw a letter opener. Desk locks were rarely of a serious nature. He had seen this kind of thing jimmied open in the movies, and while he knew better than to judge anything based on a movie, he could think of no other option at the moment.
Licking his drying lips, Max stuck the letter opener in the gap between door and desk. He slid the blade downward until he felt it hit the lock. He pushed but the metal wouldn’t give. Repositioning his body parallel with the desk, he put his weight into his efforts. Still nothing.
From the corner of his eye, he saw PB making circular Hurry! motions. Max’s pulse hammered. He ripped the letter opener out and started at the bottom. This time when he hit the lock, he yanked upward and felt the metal spring out of place. The small door cracked open.
First thing he saw — a safe with a digital key code lock. His heart sank. But as he shifted his feet, the light hit so that he caught a glimpse of the journal — carefully pushed between the side of the safe and the wood of the desk. Using the letter opener, he snagged the top of the journal’s binding and fished it out.
“Got it,” he said.
PB made a cutting motion as he fast-walked toward Max. Crap. Chelsea entered the library carrying the cardboard box from the bedroom.
The original plan was for Jammer J to wait outside, below the library window, and Max would toss him the journal. J would then hurry to the car and wait for PB and Max. Should anything go wrong, J and Mrs. Porter could leave with the journal.
But Max had to stuff the journal in his coat pocket. He had no way to get to the window, no way to signal Jammer J that things had gone wrong, and no way to get out of the house with ease. It was possible that he might simply leave and nobody would be the wiser. However, his coat pockets were small, and the journal clearly poked out. At the moment, Chelsea’s attention focused on the petrified hand, but when they left, anybody that offered a handshake or simply looked casually at Max would see the journal.
“Won’t they know you took it when they find it gone later?” Jammer J had asked when Max explained the plan.
“Yes, they will. But they won’t be able to directly say anything without admitting to its importance. That’s a can of worms they don’t want to open. If they did, they wouldn’t be hiding the journal. But if they catch me stealing it, then they never have to explain anything. The spotlight will shift to accusations against me.”
Max looked to PB who had moved out of Chelsea’s way. She set the box on the desk. “Oof. You wouldn’t think that’d be so heavy. But it takes its toll when you have to walk across the entire house.”
“I suppose you should have a mini-golf cart to drive from one end to the other.” Max’s faux-jovial tone was matched by Chelsea’s overenthusiastic laughter.
“Mr. Porter, you tease me. Anyway, here’s the hand.”
She brought out the glass cube and rested it on the desk.
PB brought the back of his hand to his forehead. “Oh. That’s disgusting.”
“Are you okay?” Chelsea asked, turning toward the boy.
“I’m sorry, Boss. I didn’t think that hand would bother me.” He walked over to Max and tripped at the last moment. Falling into Max’s arms, he snatched the journal.
Great move, kid! Max rubbed PB’s back, using his body to block Chelsea’s view. “There, there. Why don’t you go over to the window and get some air? I’ll take the photos and put the hand away.”
Chelsea picked up a wastepaper basket. “Are you going to throw up?”
Max intervened. “He’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’ve seen this before. He just needs some air.”
Stumbling across the library while keeping the journal clutched to his stomach, PB navigated his way to the window. He opened one of the low panels and leaned out.
“Please, Ms. Chelsea,” Max said, pulling her attention away from PB. “If you’ll hold the cube at an angle so I don’t get any glare from the lights.”
“Of course,” she said.
Max brought his camera app up on his phone and purposely positioned across the table. In order to help him, Chelsea had to put her back to PB. As Max took his pictures, he saw PB close the window and give a thumbs up. Three more pictures — ones he actually needed — and they were done.
“Sorry about that,” PB said, returning to the desk.
Chelsea pointed at him. “Stop right there.”
Max and PB froze.
“The hand is still out,” she said. “I don’t want you getting sick again.”
“All done,” Max said, pocketing the phone. “This will be a tremendous help.”
Chelsea packed away the hand. “Anything you need. I really want to be finished with all of this magic nonsense. Okay, young man. All clear here.”
As they walked back to the foyer with its stained-glass dome and giant carpet underneath, Max felt his heartbeat slowing to a normal rhythm. Sweat trickled down his side, but he didn’t think he looked bad or nervous. If he did, nobody made any acknowledgment of the fact.
Alan pushed Grandma Darden across the foyer, heading for the living room. “Next time you come here,” he said, “please do the polite thing and call first. We missed our sister for the entire meal, and since you obviously did not solve our problem, that was an unnecessary intrusion.”
“My apologies,” Max said.
Watching Grandma Darden’s blank eyes as she rolled by, Max thought of Edith Walker. He wondered which would be worse — being stuck in a wheelchair surrounded by only a few family members in a large empty house or being stuck in a wheelchair surrounded by numerous old strangers in an overcrowded facility. Neither sounded pleasant.
Lane gamboled by, making a straight dive for her tablet and the couch while Chelsea opened the front door. “Goodnight, Mr. Porter. Please let us know if there’s anything else we can do to help.”
“Of course. Goodnight.”
Max forced himself to walk at a normal, casual pace, and PB followed suit. When they reached the car, they settled in. Mrs. Porter gently pressed the gas, and though every fiber of Max wanted to scream, he merely rested his head against the passenger side glass and waited.
He did not move again until they left the Darden property. At that point, he spun around in the seat and put his hand out. “J, give me the journal.”
Like a drug addict, he snatched the journal and started looking at it. But then he paused. He inhaled, held it, and exhaled. “Mom, boys — thank you. You all did a fantastic job.”
“No problem,” PB said. “I hope you get something good out of it.”
Max let his hand brush over the cover of the journal. “Me, too.”
Chapter 16
MAX THOUGHT ABOUT GOING BACK to the office, but his body rejected the mere hint of pulling another all-nighter. Pointing out the heavy bags under his eyes, Max’s mother dropped him off at the house and said she would see the boys safely to their apartment. Based on the devilish grins covering PB and J’s faces, Max had a feeling they might stop to get some ice cream along the way. At the rate his mother plowed ice cream down their throats, he would have to look into a good dental plan for them.
Sandra sat on the living room floor with two books on witchcraft open before her. She wrote in a notebook balanced on her legs. Situated on their ottoman, she had her laptop with a website featuring a cartoon witch in the header displayed. As he closed the front door, she paused her studies.
“How’d it go?”
He patted the journal. “How about you?”
Dropping her pen onto the notebook, she said, “Okay, I guess. I wish there were a clearer answer, but witches and ghosts don’t often work together.”
“Drummond did okay once.”
“If by okay you mean that he fell in love with a witch who came back from the grave to nearly destroy us all.”
“True. There’s that.”
“And he was alive when he and Patricia were in love. No ghosts were involved at the time.”
“I get it. Ghosts and witches don’t get along. I take it then that there aren’t a lot of spells between the two — in a co-operative way.”
“Not even a playful, gag-gift kind of spell. Though there are plenty of ways to curse and destroy ghosts.”
Max made a show of weighing the options. “I think that might be a tad overboard for our needs. We only want to find him.”
“I will. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not. I trust you’ll figure it out.”
After washing up and putting on pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, Max shimmied under the covers of his bed. He held the journal on his chest. Part of him wanted nothing more than to spend a few hours reading whatever Aunt Holly had to offer. Part of him wanted to close his eyes.
As he debated the best course of action, the bedroom door opened. Sandra entered, resting her arm up the length of the door. “So, your mom is taking care of the boys right now.”
Max’s heart picked up its pace. “Could be a little bit before she gets back.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. And while I don’t mind her staying here —”
“Oh?”
Sauntering toward the bed, she said, “Maybe I mind a little, but I understand.”
“You are a very understanding person.” Max set the journal on his nightstand.
“So, while she’s been staying here, I’ve noticed a significant drop off in our time together.”
As she placed on knee on the corner of the bed, Max grinned. “I don’t know what you mean. We’re together at the office every day.”
Leaning forward so that he could glimpse her breasts, she said, “There’s other kinds of together time that we need to share.”
While Max was happy to continue this teasing banter, Sandra’s statement held more truth than he cared to admit. He had been suppressing the masculine, testosterone driven side of himself for too long. It felt like months since they had last enjoyed each other. Watching her crawl across the bed, seeing that happy twinkle and that hungry desire in her eyes drained the blood from his face as it all rushed further south.
When she pressed her lips against his, he closed his eyes and focused on the soft, wonderful sensation. Inhaling, he let her gentle scent fill his lungs. When he looked at her, when they smiled at each other, when he took her in his arms, he let out a low moan of relief.
“It’s been too long,” he said.
Before she could answer, they heard the front door open. Mrs. Porter had returned. Sandra arched her head back and let out a low moan of her own — disappointment.
“Damn,” Max said, releasing his wife and sitting up in bed. “Of all the nights to skip on the ice cream.”
He reached for the journal, but Sandra grabbed his hand. She pulled him back and rested his palm on her breast. With a raised eyebrow, he questioned her. She kissed him as she swung a leg over to straddle his body. When she pulled back, she raised one finger to her lips.
As excited as he had been when she first entered the bedroom, Max’s heart tripled its beat seeing that she still wanted him — albeit as quietly as they could manage. She removed her blouse, leaned close, and all thoughts left his brain. Only Sandra remained.
Around three-thirty in the morning, Max stared at the ceiling. He wished he could fall back asleep, but he knew better. Sex had relaxed him and exhaustion had claimed a few hours, but his mind could only rest for so long. Not wanting to bother Sandra — her soft snores brought a warm sensation over him — he picked up the journal and tiptoed his way down to his study.
Under the dim light of a single desk lamp, he opened the journal and read. The first thing to become clear was that this would be no ordinary journal. Aunt Holly had no interest in recording the daily activities of the Darden family nor did she want to ponder the mundane aspects of her life. If anything, the journal appeared to be a sounding board for her to weigh the value of each child under her care. She saw these kids like no other — not only because she was their guardian but because she had a keen eye for picking up subtle clues between them. All of her observations centered around which of these children would help return the craft of magic back under the Darden family name. And she wrote all of it down.
Her earliest entries focused on Chelsea. She wrote:
The girl is eager to please and easy to anger, though she hides it well. Often, I only notice a twitch of her eye or a tightness in her lips. Those are the singular marks to the anger boiling in her heart, often due to some minor slight from her siblings or a decision of mine she deems unfair.
Her confusion and distress pushes her to eat. The sweeter, the better. But I should not mistake this for weakness. It’s easy to dismiss her. However, she is the first born Darden of her generation which brings with it a stronger blood tie to our hidden talents. Yet her hatred towards witchcraft may be bolder than the urges of her blood.
What a sad way to live, denying your true self out of fear or any reason.
She is a conflicted mess. Of course, some behavior problem is to be expected. She did lose both parents in a single, tragic night. But she’s too old to fall for the car accident story. She knew where her mother’s heart longed to be. No matter the fights, the denials, no matter how many times my sister claimed to be done with it all, she always returned. Chelsea’s smart enough to understand that her parents did not perish under natural circumstances. And so, she’s angry and bitter towards witchcraft. Whether I can change her opinion over time remains to be seen. At least now, I am the sole heir to the Darden fortune. The money will help build a strong foundation for the magic that we build.
“Holy crap,” Max said to the book. He didn’t know where to begin in his head — Aunt Holly admitting that the parents had been killed through magic or the twisted way Aunt Holly planned to profit from the deaths.
On the top of the next page, centered and capitalized, Aunt Holly had written ALAN. Underneath, she wrote:
Alan is a petulant boy. I suppose all boys are, but he is particularly talented at annoying me to no end. His emotions can shift drastically. Were it not for the death of his parents, I would have assumed he suffered from manic-depression or some similar mental ailment. But under the circumstances, I think he is merely trying to come to terms with his loss. Unfortunately, for me, on a good day, that often manifests in the form of pranks at my expense. On a bad day, it means tantrums, crying, hitting, screaming, anything to let out the rage.
It is a shame he’s a boy. Were he a girl, I would see great potential and strength. I would choose him above all the siblings to teach him the ways of magic and our family obligation to the craft. But regardless of the arguments, I am a firm believer that witchcraft was, is, and shall always be a matriarchal magic by and for women. No doubt discovered by a desperate wife under the oppressive thumb of an abusive husband.
Finally, on a new page under the heading LANE, Aunt Holly wrote:
An infant with no memory of her parents, Lane might be my best chance at shaping a true soul to spark the revival of the Darden family. But she might end up another disappointment. I’ll have to wait a few years until she’s old enough to reveal her true self.
In the pages that followed, Aunt Holly outlined and detailed various moments and incidents as if she were a lawyer presenting evidence to a court. But, as judge also, she would eventually have to review her notes and make a ruling. Max wondered how much of the distribution of Aunt Holly’s Will reflected that ruling.
Reading the journal further, it emerged that the children were keenly aware of Aunt Holly’s constant observation — perhaps even aware of the trial going on in these pages. Max swallowed a bitter taste.
Aunt Holly did little to referee the triangle of hate created between the three children. In the journal, she detailed how Lane and Chelsea would gang up on Alan one day, and the next Alan and Chelsea would terrorize Lane. Not to be outdone, Lane would employ Alan to have revenge upon Chelsea. Back and forth, the three allied with each other in a never-ending effort to control the odd one out. For her part, Aunt Holly only intervened when their actions disturbed the peace of the house.
One entry, however, stood out amongst them all.
Strange how the world never stops. People live and die. Empires are formed and crumble. A great President runs the country only to be replaced by an incompetent twit, and the incompetent President is replaced with a great one. Or, at least, a good one. Around and around. Atrocities are committed and wonderful sacrifices are made. Altruism comes in and out of fashion. All of it passes along, yet we always feel that our moment in time is crucial, special, different from all the other repetitions of these unending cycles. And so it is that a powerful weapon of magic that once was a prized possession of our family has returned to us.
