Magic Misled (Lizzie Grace #7) - Keri Arthur Page 0,47

as I frowned, the memory fell into place. Aiden and I had visited her shop in Woodend when we’d been searching for the witch who’d created the tracking and control bracelets being used to hunt and kill reservation werewolves.

The threads gave a final pulse of power and then faded away. I opened my hand and watched the threads disintegrate.

“Anything?” Belle asked.

I nodded and climbed off the table. “It was made by a witch in Woodend—her store is called Pot of Magic. Aiden and I were there briefly when we were looking for the witch behind the wolf trackers.”

“Is she good or bad?” Ava asked.

“Her craft is healing. Not sure why she’d deviate into something like this.”

“Money,” Belle said. “It’s the root of all evil.”

“I don’t believe she believed the spell was to be used in a nefarious manner.”

Belle expression suggested she wasn’t so convinced. “So a visit is in order tomorrow?”

I nodded. “Would you and Ava like to head out in the morning? Woodend’s a lovely little town, and it’s a nice drive down there. You could make a day of it.”

“Deal.” She smiled. “And it’s not like the café’s been flat out of late.”

“The weather is supposed to improve tomorrow.”

“Ha! Believe that when I see it.” She turned and led the way out. “You’d better warn Harry our unit is protected by magic and that he’ll need to contact one of us before the new door is installed.”

I nodded. “You might as well take the SUV—it’s the easiest to get out. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”

“It’ll be late. If we’re going to make a day of it, we might as well have dinner out too.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

I kissed both their cheeks, then, as the two of them climbed into the SUV, I walked across to the office. Harry was sitting at his desk while Mac leaned over his shoulder. Both were staring at a small computer screen, their expressions intent.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Yeah, bloody small writing,” Mac grumbled.

I stopped behind them and looked over Harry’s other shoulder. The writing was indeed tiny and gray on black, which made it even more difficult to see. “You can’t enlarge the text?”

“No,” Harry said. “Maybe you should both invest in eyeglasses.”

Mac glanced at me and rolled his eyes. Obviously not the first time he’d heard that particular statement.

Harry continued to scroll through the files for several minutes, then stopped and pointed at the screen. “There it is.”

I squinted at the screen. It was marked “unassigned keycard” and had a number and time stamp beside it. “Eight forty-five. When did they leave?”

He scrolled on a bit more. “Three minutes past nine.”

“They weren’t here long,” I said.

“Long enough to make a mess of your goddamn roller door,” Harry grouched.

“So why didn’t the alarms go off?” Mac said.

“They wouldn’t if the access was authorized.”

“What about the cameras, then?” I asked. “Has the recording been checked yet?”

“No, because we had to grab a time first,” Harry said. “Hard to tell who was actually authorized and who wasn’t otherwise.”

He swung around abruptly—forcing Mac and me to jump out of the way—and stalked across to the other side of the room. Next to the filing cabinets, on a long secondary desk, was a second computer, a printer, and an upright, foot-high black box with a number of wires sticking out of it—one of which was attached to the computer. He moved the mouse to reactivate the monitor, clicked through a number of programs and screens, and then typed the time in and hit enter.

The image blurred for several minutes and then settled. The gates appeared, the reader barely visible beyond them. Lights swept into the driveway, briefly flaring against the camera’s lens, making it impossible to see anything.

“Need to fix that,” Mac commented. “You’d only need to move the camera a foot or two to the right.”

Harry grunted in agreement, though I suspected he had no intention of shifting anything. The gates slid open, and the fierce brightness of the lights dipped away. It was a nondescript white dual-cab four-wheel drive; my gaze dropped to the number plate. It had been blacked out.

The truck swung around so that its rear faced our roller door. Then, with a slight puff of smoke coming from the rear tires, the truck reversed back into our door. The truck stopped, and two men immediately jumped out. Not only were both dressed in black, but they both wore black gloves and brightly colored full ski masks. The driver was broad of shoulder