Apple of My Eye (Tiger's Eye Mystery #7) - Alyssa Day Page 0,2

skeleton. Tess, take care. I'll see you soon."

"Hey—lunch? Monday, maybe?"

She hesitated. "Maybe. If I'm not too busy with whatever this turns out to be. We might catch a break, though. We had a little money left in the budget for the year, so I hired a magical resonance expert to come out and look at the decades of junk piled up in the evidence room. Sheriff Lawless had no rhyme or reason, that I can tell, to how he categorized evidence or even what he decided to keep. Since I can't reach him to ask about it, I thought I'd have an expert take a look. Maybe we can clear out a lot of that crap."

She couldn't reach the former sheriff, because he was currently taking up space in an FBI Paranormal Operations special holding facility for very bad people, and I hoped he never, ever got out. He'd been involved in my late boss's—Jack's uncle's—death.

Lucky wandered over from the knives and weapons case, where he'd been studying a particularly fine dagger with a camel-bone handle, which gave me hopes for a sale. He did have a thriving swamp boat business these days, so instead of only seeing him in the shop when he wanted to pawn his guitar, I sometimes saw him when he was in a shopping mood.

"What's a magical resonance expert?"

"I can take this one," I said. "Mrs. Kowalski, the evil witch, came over to the shop and performed one when we were trying to figure out who killed Jeremiah. At the time, we didn't know she was involved in his death. But, basically, it's a test to see if there's any trace of magic in a place."

"Right," Susan said. "Or if magic users have been there in the timeframe determined by how powerful the witch doing the testing is. This expert I have coming down is extremely good. I read an article about how she once picked up traces of magic used more than a century ago, and the subsequent investigation confirmed her results. She's really good, and we're lucky to get her. Her schedule is insanely packed."

"Wow, that's great. I kind of wish I could see her in action," I said. "I think that stuff's fascinating."

They both looked at me with identical skeptical expressions.

"Well, it is, when it's about an old skeleton, not somebody I love," I said, throwing my hands up in the air.

"Sorry. Police business. I can't have civilians in the evidence storage room," Susan said. "She'll start work Monday morning and be here for two days before she goes down to Miami for a vacation with her family."

"Sounds great! Let me know. And good luck with your immediate future." I couldn't repress a gleeful smirk, and Susan narrowed her eyes.

"What are you talking about? That face is about more than the skeleton."

The smile escaped and spread all over my face. "Oh, you know. Just thinking about how you'll have to report the find. To the mayor."

Susan's entire body slumped, and she muttered something beneath her breath in Spanish that I was betting was not entirely complimentary to the newly elected mayor of Dead End:

My Aunt Ruby.

My overprotective, prone-to-nervous anxiety, Aunt Ruby.

The woman who'd raised me, loved me, and stifled me with a cocoon of caring, and who, when we went somewhere together, still—to this day—would ask me if I had to use the bathroom before we left the house.

"Heh. Does she ask you if you need to go potty before you leave the jail?"

Susan groaned, and a look of terror mixed with resignation crossed her face. "Not yet, but she asked me if I needed her to whip out her sewing machine and take in my uniforms for me, since they've been fitting kind of loosely."

Lucky glanced back and forth between the two of us. "Why is that bad? Sounds pretty nice, actually. I wish somebody—"

"When I was at work."

"But—"

"Interrogating a suspect."

"Oh."

"And then she asked my suspect how he thought his mother would feel about finding out he was robbing houses."

I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe by then. "And did he start crying and confess all? I know I always did, when I did something bad as a kid."

She shook her head in disbelief. "It's amazing, but he did. This hardened criminal, with a rap sheet longer than the line at Mellie's on gingerbread donut day, was practically sobbing, confessing to all, and promising to 'do better.'"

I sighed. "The strangest part of it is that he probably will. She