“That’s different,” I argued. “He didn’t even mention anything about ghosts or magic in this case and it’s hardly like Agatha is pulling any ghostly strings. The woman spends her time giving unsuspecting pedestrians the middle-fingered salute and flashing her knickers at the delivery man.” The three men didn’t look convinced. I spread my arms wide. “Come on, guys, get real. I know Agatha fancies herself as some big bad witch, but she doesn’t have any high-powered magical enemies. She’s an old woman who owned a thrift shop and was practically a recluse.”
Finn frowned. “That’s not true.” He looked at the other men for support and they nodded. “I mean, maybe for the last few months after she fell out with her doll-making friends, but she was hardly ever at home before that.”
“She loved getting into her car and tearing around the country,” Pussy agreed. He pressed a hand against his stomach and made a face. “She was such a bad driver.”
Tom smirked. “The worst.” His lips thinned. “She was pretty low the last few weeks. though. She kept trying to leave the house but she just… couldn’t. She couldn’t make herself walk out those doors. And then Frankie left.” He shook his head. “She only started to come round again when she found out you’d accepted the job.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Another genius decision from Price Jones.” Something tickled my memory as I imagined a depressed Agatha, unable to leave the house no matter how much she wanted to. Officer Fitzgerald’s words came back to me like a bad dream, somebody Agatha knew or somebody with serious voodoo. Magic. Somebody with magic. I stared at the guys. “Agatha would never have been so depressed that she would…” The three men gave me a puzzled glance and I pursed my lips. “Is there any chance Agatha could have used magic to end her own life?”
“What? No,” Finn said. He glanced at the others. “Right?”
Tom looked slightly less convinced. He pressed his lips together. “Maybe we need to talk to Agatha about what you’ve uncovered so far.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling and called, “Agatha?”
“Aggy?” Pussy joined in. “Agatha, we’ve got liquor…”
The ghost didn’t appear. Finn pushed the door open. “Back when she was alive, when she would get stressed out, she would lock herself away for hours in her study doing her scrapbooking or whatever the hell it was she did with all those clippings of hers.”
“Thanks, Finn,” I murmured. I made my way up the stairs, shielding my eyes from flashes of the cameras that tried to snap photos through the front entryway. The guys had pulled the curtains closed, but the lights were still bright, and it made my stomach churn.
I knocked gently on Agatha’s study door, but there was no reply. After waiting a few seconds, I knocked again and pushed open the door. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t think you were in here,” I quickly apologized, seeing Agatha’s small frame bent down over something on the floor.
Agatha looked up at me. “No bother, I was just fussing with something. How are you doing, dearie?”
I let the door fall closed behind me and gazed down at the large box that she had before her. “You know, I’ve had better days.” Like the days when the media didn’t think I was a killer and I didn’t have to ask a ghost had they committed suicide. I offered the old woman a smile before returning my attention back down to the numerous clippings that she had piled in the shoebox before she slipped it away in the drawer next to her, slamming it shut.
The guys followed me into the room, but Tom and Finn turned into cats immediately as they arrived. I frowned at them and then looked at Pussy, still in human form. Agatha stared at the cats for a long moment before murmuring, “The magic is fading.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You remember your magic?”
Agatha shook her head softly and stared down at the cats, a deep frown setting on her face. “No, not really, just little bits and pieces.” She screwed her eyes shut and a look of fierce concentration crossed her face. “But I remember the magic is fading.” She paused and looked me straight in the eye. “We’re losing control.”
“We? What do you have to do with this?” I looked at Agatha and then at the cats. “Your magic, Agatha? Is that what keeps turning the guys back into cats? Will they be your familiars forever? Unless we can fix your memory?”
Agatha froze in place, averting her gaze from mine. She stared into the corner of the room. “We’re losing control of the magic. That’s all I know. It’s just a glimpse, but I can see it. I can sense it. The chaos, it’s growing.”
I took a step toward her. “Agatha, could that be why you reached out to me? Why you needed an assistant, one you thought was a witch? Could that be why you left everything in my name, because you were losing control of something?” I took another step, lowering my voice. “Is that why you stopped leaving the house, Agatha? Is that why you were depressed?”
“What?” Agatha turned her beady glare on me.
I swallowed. “Before you died, you were depressed—”
“Not that, the other thing,” she snapped.
“About not leaving the house?” I said. “You hadn’t left the building for weeks, you couldn’t leave, do you remember? The guys said you felt like you were trapped?”
With a low hiss, Agatha vanished before I could ask her anything else. I called after her, but she didn’t reply. I turned back to Pussy, who frowned at me and knelt down next to the other cats, running his hand through his hair. “She’s upset. I haven’t seen her look this upset in a long time. Maybe just leave her be, Price?”
“I don’t want to upset her, Pussy, but we need answers and fast. There are people outside the door baying for my blood. I need to find something to help us figure this out.” I turned my attention to the drawer where Agatha had shoved the box, trying my best to ignore the constant buzz of noise from outside the store. I yanked the drawer opened and pulled out the shoebox Agatha had hidden away. “What was she doing here all day?”
Pussy shrugged and leaned back against the wall. “I don’t know, maybe scrapbooking or some shit like that.”
I flipped through the newspaper clippings in the box. There must’ve been hundreds in there. Some were new, but most were old and brittle. I picked them up as carefully as I could. I flipped through the first few and paused when my eyes fell on an image of a younger Agatha with a tall, elegant Asian man. I gasped as I stared down at him, confused. “Oh, my God.”
Pussy edged closer to me to peer at the paper in my hand. “Who’s that?”
“This is Dr. Lee,” I whispered. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. “Agatha knew Dr. Lee? She recognized when I was using his calming technique when I first got here, but she never told me she knew him. ” I stared down at the image, wondering just how well she knew the man. Had this photo just been taken in passing? Were they close? I had so many more questions for her, I wished she would come back. “Oh, my God. She’s so lucky.” Pussy raised one eyebrow. I grimaced. “Well, except for the whole murder victim thing, obviously.”
I held the piece of paper against my chest. Agatha knew Dr. Lee. I felt my lips curve. Maybe she wasn’t such an awful old witch after all. I placed the newspaper cut-out beside me before continuing to flip through the rest. If I thought I was shocked when I saw the photo of Agatha and Dr. Lee, what my eyes fell upon next nearly stopped my heart.
“What the freakin’ fruit loops!” I turned to Pussy and the two cats. “Guys, you all need to see this.” I felt my heart skip a beat in my chest as my skin grew cold and clammy. The two cats rubbed against my hand and all three men were in human form again. I didn’t even care that two of them were naked, I simply held the piece of paper up to them for them to see. By the expressions on their faces, they were just as shocked as I was.
“Is that you?” Finn asked, his eyes wide.
I pulled the paper back toward me and gazed down at it, nodding slowly. “Yeah, it is. Why the heck would Agatha have a newspaper clipping of me from this long ago?”