and broke the connection.
I squeezed her fingertips. “You did the best you could.”
“I know, but I always hate it when they refuse help like this.”
“She made her choice. You can’t deny her that.”
“I know.” She took a deep breath and then glanced at Jaz. “What do we know about this sweet factory Morris mentioned?”
“Nothing more than what he said—though it does explain why we randomly found a humbug on the floor.” She stopped recording and put her phone away.
“Is it worth us going over there to check?” I disbanded the protection circle and then collected my spell stones. “She must have been there at some point recently, given none of the other souls we talked to mentioned the humbug.”
“There’ve been no reports of a break-in though, and trust me, there would have been, especially given Ingrid and her son live on site.”
“It won’t hurt to check, though, surely?” I shoved my spell stones safely into my backpack and then offered Belle a hand up. Although today hadn’t sapped a huge amount of energy, her weariness pulsed through me. She hadn’t yet fully recovered from her previous efforts.
Jaz’s eyes glimmered with amusement. “It might if anything goes wrong and you get hurt.”
I snorted. “I do wish everyone would stop worrying about what Aiden might or might not do or say whenever I suggest a course of action when he’s not around. Seriously, it’s getting annoying.”
“I’d rather you’re annoyed at me than him.” She held up a hand, forestalling my reply. “But I agree—we should go check it out. He and Monty will be updating the council right about now, anyway.”
“Good.” I glanced at Belle. “You should head home and rest up.”
She frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea when you’re just as tired—”
“But I can call on the wild magic to help, if needed.” I smiled. “Besides, you need to be at full strength for your date with Monty on Friday.”
She groaned. “For fuck’s sake, can he not keep anything to himself?”
“Apparently not.” I handed her the keys. “I’ll bring dinner back for the three of us—if Jaz doesn’t mind stopping before she drops me off, that is.”
“She doesn’t.” Jaz motioned to the door. “We right to leave?”
When I nodded, she spun and led the way out. Belle headed for our SUV, while I climbed into the passenger side of Jaz’s truck. Once she’d locked the hall, she jumped in and we took off. After weaving our way through a number of smaller side streets, she eventually stopped on the side of the road opposite a large, multi-building factory complex. “Butterworth’s is the red-brick building with the big chimney.”
Aside from that chimney, its only other difference to the multiple other buildings in the complex was its length and proximity to the creek. I glanced at the old weatherboard house on the other side of the creek. It had been wedged onto a triangular bit of land overgrown with weeds and blackberries. “I take it Mrs. Butterworth and her son live in that house?”
“Yes, and we’ll need to get the keys off them, as I don’t want to be setting off any alarms if this thing is inside.”
“Good idea.”
She drove back over the bridge to the small house, then undid her seat belt and opened the door. “You’d better stay here. The old girl has this weird thing about strangers—she seems to think everyone is out to steal their sweet recipes.”
“If the sweets are as good as Morris implied then I just might.”
Jaz laughed and climbed out. The curtains twitched, and a few seconds later, the front door opened. Mrs. Butterworth was a stout-looking, curly-haired woman with a stern, rather humorless face. I wound down the window and listened as Jaz explained she’d had a report of an intruder and that we needed the keys so we could check out all the factories. Which obviously meant Mrs. Butterworth owned the whole complex, not just the sweet factory. A bit of haggling followed, then the keys were handed over. Jaz tossed them to me before reversing back onto the road.
“It sounded like you practically had to promise her your first-born child to get these things.”
Jaz laughed. “Just about. I had to promise to stay for a cup of tea and a scone when I returned them.”
I raised eyebrows. “She didn’t seem the tea and scone type to me.”
“She isn’t. She’s trying to set me up with her son—he still lives with her despite being in his late thirties.”
“She knows you’re married, right?”
“Yes,