The Flame Game (Magical Romantic Comedies #12) - R.J. Blain Page 0,54
if I can make sense of them. The next time you gas up, you can hand me the first of the files, so I can start matching things, too, assuming I haven’t found anything interesting by then.”
“You have a deal. But no homemade napalm today, even if I stop at a gas station with diesel.”
“That’s just mean, Quinn.”
“You’ll survive.”
Nine
Ew, ew, ew.
The insignificant, with new knowledge, could become significant in the blink of an eye, and Audrey’s financials told a chilling story. Lacking any reason to suspect his ex-wife, there was no reason for my husband to become suspicious over some—no, a lot—of the transactions in the spreadsheet.
However, understanding there might be a link between her, Chief Morrison, and the gorgons who’d kidnapped Janet changed the way I viewed her receipts.
Three years before her questionable marriage to Manhattan’s Most Wanted Bachelor, Audrey McGee had made weekly trips to the Hamptons. Those had changed to monthly trips to the Hamptons, although where she went remained fixed. Making use of my phone, I determined she’d gone for coffee at a shop several blocks away from the primary police station serving the rich and famous in the area, the perfect place for her to meet someone.
Most times, she returned home the same day, but before her marriage to Quinn, she’d stayed until morning more often than not, filling up at a gas station not far away.
How odd.
Near the end of their marriage, her forays to the Hamptons became weekly again, and she tended to go to the gas station several hours after the coffee shop. Sometimes, she went to the pharmacy. The purchases at the pharmacy baffled me until I checked the price of condoms and got a match on a common brand.
What a bitch.
Grabbing my phone, I went through my options and finally texted Janet, asking if she was aware of where Chief Morrison lived.
She replied with an address in the Hamptons.
I checked the address compared to the pharmacy to discover it was a quarter of a mile away from where the chief lived.
Ew, ew, ew.
I thanked her, wondering what to do about what I’d learned.
If Audrey had been involved with the batch of gorgon dust production, which seemed obvious to me, considering she’d become a gorgon and had been found with a batch, how did she relate to Chief Morrison? More importantly, how did Chief Morrison tie into the gorgon dust problem?
Considering Morrison was likely guilty of aiding and abetting gorgons into kidnapping a police officer, how was he tied to the rabies problem?
I worried Audrey’s activities might give me the clues I needed. I returned to her financials and filtered out all transactions from New York and focused on when she left the state.
Sure enough, I found several trips that took her through Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts.
“Your ex-wife is quite the character,” I told my husband.
“Yes, I had figured that out, which was why I asked for your help divorcing her. I really should have just tipped off an incubus. That would have done the trick.”
I spied an exit sign with a gas station ahead, and I pointed at it. “Stop there, because I do not want you to crash the rental.”
“That doesn’t sound promising. Did you find something?”
“I think so.”
The exit led to a full-fledged rest center with several restaurants, enough gas and diesel to make a life-time supply of homemade napalm, and a visitor’s center, one that was miraculously open. “Oh! We should get stuffed animals for the kids, then we’ll talk.”
“Sure.” He parked, and I shoved my laptop into my bag, and hurried for the gift shop in case it was about to close. I searched for presents for our kids, debating how best to break the news to Quinn.
They had stuffed cindercorns, and I stared at them with wide eyes, my mouth hanging open.
Quinn spotted them, laughed, and reached up to take two off the shelf, and then he retrieved two more, which he handed to me. “Two for the whelps, two for the twins, and I should get two for us so we can play with the kids.”
He did just that, and after a moment of thought, he grabbed the remaining stock.
“That’s too many.”
“It’s not enough. I’ve been warned, Bailey. We’re the kind of parents who will inevitably have more kids because we love children. And two are for us.”
So much for sane purchases. I pointed at the white unicorns on the neighboring shelf. “Grab a few of those, and we should get new travel mugs.”