thought she was just being a goofy kid, being silly as she and her aunt and uncle sped away.
“Oh my gawd.” My legs tingled and unhinged, and I slid to the ground while the world buzzed around me. “I saw her taken. I just didn’t realize it!” I clapped a hand over my mouth as I struggled with the horror of knowing I’d seen something and done nothing about.
Crash crouched beside me with a hand on my back, not moving, not speaking, just there with me. I leaned into the soft warmth of his hand. Something was itching in the back of my head about Charlotte’s kidnapping, but I couldn’t quite put it together.
“I can feel you thinking,” Crash said. “What did you figure out?”
I held up a finger, forestalling any comments while I mulled it over. Then it hit me—Gran had started acting weird the day Charlotte was taken. Because Matilda, the ghost from the Sorrel-Weed House, had already taken her place. But I hadn’t put two and two together until this moment.
“The same day,” I said. “Gran went missing the same day as Charlotte, I’m sure of it.” But I still didn’t understand the connection. What in the world did Charlotte have in common with a dead witch, aka my gran?
Then again Charlotte was able to see her house goblin, Bridgette, and she’d always seemed drawn to Eric and me. I should have put two and two together, but many children could see the shadow world to some extent, even if their parents couldn’t. Someone had figured out what I hadn’t; Charlotte was part of the shadow world.
Penny thumped her stick hard into the ground. “Someone is up for an ass whooping. I don’t know where to find Homer Underwood, do you? I’ve not heard his name before.”
She didn’t ask it with any condescension—she genuinely thought I might have answers, and her faith in me was a little unnerving.
I drew in a shaky breath. We could do this. We had to do this. If Gran and Charlotte had been taken by the same people, then at least we were only looking for one group of supernatural jerks. Which, in theory, should be easier, right?
Taking in another shaky breath, I pushed up to my feet. Determination settled in my gut, powered by a spurt of anger. Bad enough that someone took Gran, who was at least dead, but Charlotte too?
Penny was right, someone was in for an ass whooping.
“Homer Underwood,” I said. “We start with him and see what he can tell us. Let’s get back to the house and get the troops moving. We’ve got two to find now.”
Before the police found me and piled some real charges on top of my trumped up ones.
I held Penny’s arm as we walked back to the house. She was trembling, but when I glanced at her, I saw a tight mouth and drawn eyebrows. Not afraid then. No, she looked about ready to spit nails at whoever had taken Gran and Charlotte. Didn’t matter that Charlotte was a stranger, only that she was a little girl who should have been left out of this. I liked Penny more for it.
Despite Penny’s slower pace, her house came into view in what seemed a very short time. Crash held the door open for us, and we stepped inside to a cacophony of yelling.
“Did no one see them leave?” Corb roared, his bare back to me so I could see every line of tension in his shoulders. “What the damn hell? I’m going to have to put a tracker on her!” The smell of fresh-baked bread permeated the air and somehow soothed some of my anxiety.
Fresh-baked bread was life as far as I was concerned.
Feish stood facing me and she pointed. “She back now, brought the boss with her. Good idea.”
Corb spun, and the sight of Crash seemed to kick the air right out of him. The look in his eyes went from freaked the duck out, to as hard as ice in a split second. “Bree, what the hell? You can’t just leave like that and not tell anyone.”
I pointed at the sticky note I’d left on the front door before I went out the first time. “I left a note.”
His jaw ticked as his eyes swept to the bright yellow piece of paper. Men, you couldn’t train them to see milk in the fridge if you tried, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d look right past my note.