“Big explosion?” Teag had already hacked into the police database, so we knew Monroe had nothing on us. His Volvo looks like thousands of cars in the Charleston area, and Lucinda put a little spell on his license plate that makes it fuzzy for cameras or computers. Monroe was fishing, and I wasn’t biting.
“Out at the old Belle Terre plantation,” Monroe replied, eyes narrowing as if she guessed I was evading her. “Helicopter crashed into a house.”
“Sorry to hear that. Hope no one was hurt.”
“Three people were killed,” Monroe snapped.
My patience was wearing thin. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I repeated. “But I don’t know what it has to do with me, or why it brings you here. And I do need to get the store ready to open.”
“Have you ever been out to the Belle Terre plantation?”
I met her gaze. “This is Charleston. I’ve been to a lot of plantations. What’s your point?”
“First a bomb goes off in front of your shop. Then a helicopter crashes into a house – one that’s got the strangest history of ownership I’ve ever seen. Funny, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure why you think that everything that happens in Charleston has something to do with me. I’m not that important,” I replied, stepping around Monroe and setting out fresh merchandise for the day. “Surely there’s something more urgent you need to do.”
“There’s something off about you and this store,” Monroe replied. I wondered if she had a bit of magic herself that fueled her hunches and fed her intuition. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to find out.”
Not if I can help it. “Am I free to go?” I asked, “because I’ve got a business to run, and you’ve got an unfortunate accident to deal with, so we both have more important things to be doing.”
If Monroe thought she was going to intimidate me into pouring out my soul to her, she was wrong. I’ve fought demons and vampires and ghouls, stared down Loas and sorcerers, and held my own against hell spawn. She didn’t even make my radar of scary things, although having her poking around was likely to be inconvenient.
“Go,” she said irritably with a wave of her hand. “But I intend to look into any possible connection between this store and the Belle Terre plantation. And if I find one, I’ll be back – you can count on it.”
I didn’t turn around to watch her leave, although I relaxed a bit when the door slammed shut. It worried me that she might be able to find a connection between the plantation and Trifles and Folly. Sorren was exceptionally careful about things like that. Then again, several centuries ago, no one foresaw databases that stored information indefinitely.
Monroe would figure that any link between the explosion at the plantation and the bomb at the store meant we were hiding something from her, and we were. And, if she could find the connection between the plantation and the store, maybe someone else would, too.
Then again, if the bomber had a connection to Sariel, he – or she – had come here because of Sorren, had already known the connection between Sorren and the store. But despite the attacks on Sorren’s other properties, this vendetta seemed especially focused on Charleston. And that meant big trouble for us.
A few moments after Detective Monroe left, Teag stuck his head out of the back room. “Is it safe to come out?”
I sighed. “As safe as it ever is around here.” Teag had a glass of iced tea, and I took a swig of my coffee before I went back to arranging the displays.
“You know, I got thinking after I left your place last night,” Teag said, moving to the other side of the store to put out the jewelry and valuables we lock up each night. “I wondered whether old Josiah actually left Dueler’s Alley, or whether he hung around to keep an eye on things.” A gleam came into his eye. “It would be interesting to take Alicia Peters down there and see.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I replied. “Josiah wasn’t the kind to give up and go home. He instigated the duel so that he wasn’t at the mercy of the demon-spawn who poisoned him. And that raises another question. Did he already have an escape plan in place?”
“Sounds to me like Josiah had a love-hate relationship with magic,” Teag said, leaning back in his chair. “And from what you’ve said, he