Flipping the Bird (Shift Creek #1) - Carrie Pulkinen Page 0,3

her for the umpteenth time. Meg took it literally and wore a string of the noisy suckers around her neck for a week, jingling all over the place and giving Alice a headache.

“You got it.” Megan’s body shimmered, a mist of pale pink sparkles dancing around her form as she shifted into her raccoon. She chittered a goodbye and scurried toward the farm, dragging the trap behind her.

With tourism at an all-time low, they were hurting for cash as it was. They couldn’t afford another arrest, especially a theft charge.

Alice sighed, taking one last look at the waning creek before calling on her crow. Her body shimmered in green, her magical signature color—which happened to match her eyes. How cool was that? And she morphed from a five-foot-eight brunette into a one-foot-seven black crow.

With a flap of her wings, she took to the sky, soaring above the trees toward town when a light shining in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Was that coming from Rainecourt Manor?

Her little heart fluttered in her chest as she altered course and headed west toward the abandoned house. Someone on the committee must have gotten through to the brothers. Halleluiah, the town was saved!

She flapped harder, elation fizzing in her veins as the mansion came into view. From the outside, you’d never know the place had sat empty for the past thirty-something years. A groundskeeper, who lived in a one-bedroom cottage on the property, kept the place immaculate. The lawn was always mowed, and the paint had never peeled.

Inside, who knew? She imagined lots of chandeliers and expensive furniture covered in sheets, a thick film of dust layered on everything, the stagnant air smelling of mildew like an old haunted house.

Or, heck, they were rich. If they could afford to pay a groundskeeper all these years, maybe they ran the AC and kept it a comfortable seventy-four degrees inside at all times.

One thing was for certain, though. Never in all the time Alice had flown around the place had she seen a light on inside.

She swooped toward the balcony, landing on the railing and ruffling her feathers before hopping closer to the window. Inside, she glimpsed a stack of boxes and a four-poster dark wood bed with a deep-burgundy duvet. A matching chest of drawers sat against the opposite wall, and…was that a fainting couch? Alice blew a puff of breath through her nostrils. Based on what she’d learned about Marcus Rainecourt, his wife probably used it regularly.

A shadow moved in the corner, and her heart rate kicked up again. If she had fingers, she would have crossed them that the person it belonged to would be Griffin. Truth be told, she didn’t know much about either brother. She didn’t keep up with the tabloids, and they were both little when their father dragged them to New York, so none of the townsfolk had much intel on them either.

Their father, Marcus, was remembered as a hard-ass warlock who looked down his nose at everyone, including the other witches and warlocks in town. He considered the residents of Shift Creek simpletons—never mind the fact he was born and raised here too. Rumor had it he sold spells on the black market to make his millions. Alice would rather be a simpleton than a criminal.

Hey, trespassing didn’t count. If she’d stayed in crow form while digging through the junkyard, she never would have gotten caught. Sometimes a girl needed to use her hands. Don’t judge.

The balcony door stood open, probably to air the place out. Even if they had run the AC for the past thirty-something years, the inside must’ve smelled dusty. Alice hopped along the railing, getting as close as she dared, when a masculine grunt emanated from inside.

“Where is it, Martin?” His voice was deep and a little bit rumbly. It was also kinda velvety at the same time, like rocky road ice cream—how the smooth chocolate melted in your mouth, and then you hit a nut or a marshmallow, and those little bumps were what gave it flair.

“How should I know? You packed the boxes.” The responding voice held a higher, nasally pitch that didn’t sound quite human.

“It wasn’t in a box. It was in the satchel with you.” Despite being obviously perturbed, something about the man’s voice made Alice shiver in a good way. Mmm… She had a sudden craving for ice cream.

As she leaned toward the open door, the man came into view. He was tall and slightly tanned,