The catch in the old woman’s voice tugged at my chest, and on instinct I leaned over and squeezed Dot’s hand gently. “I’m sorry for your loss.” I turned my head to address Bianca. “Both of you.”
The tall woman stiffened in her chair and clasped her long fingers together tightly. “I’m afraid your sympathy is a little misplaced, Miss Jones. Agatha fell out with Dot and me,and we’d barely seen her in the months leading up to her death. In fact, she’d become quite the recluse, rarely left the building, and the people she did see, claimed she’d become somewhat…fanciful in her thoughts. Delusional, even.” Bianca rested her elbows on the table and shrugged her shoulder. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you found a load of old scribblings full of her crazy ideas lying around. Frankie, her assistant, said she was declaring him of all sorts of nonsense before they parted ways. Of course, after the way everything ended between those two, it’s hard to know if he’s just talking out of spite.”
I eyed the cats warily out of the corner of my eye as Bianca finished speaking. Crazy Agatha falling out with her employees and pissing everybody off; sounded pretty accurate. And now I was talking to her ghost and hearing her cats speak. A knot tightened in my gut and I pushed my chair away from the table and started to clear the empty cups. “That’s really sad, the poor lady,” I said.
Dot sprang from her seat with surprising grace and started to pack everything away, clearly as anxious for the impromptu get-together to end as I was. Only Bianca remained seated. Her gray stare was trained on my face. “I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to upset you. I wasn’t suggesting that her will could be overturned because of her mental state before her death.” My hand froze halfway to the faucet over the sink and I met her eye. She smiled sweetly, the elegant curve of her lips doing nothing to soften the sharp predatory nature of her gaze. “I’m sure nobody thinks that for a second.”
“I didn’t ask for this.” I turned my back to the sink, feeling the edge of the counter dig into my lower back. “I had no idea she was going to leave anything to me. I’m not some sort of social predator if that’s what you think. Anyone who has a problem with Mrs. Bentley’s will is more than welcome to take it up with her attorney.”
Dot shook her head so hard that her white curls bounced around her cheeks. “Oh, no, that’s not what we think at all. We don’t want any of Agatha’s money. I’ve got my shop and Bianca’s the wealthiest woman in town, and even if we weren’t, we wouldn’t want a cent from Aggy’s estate, right, Bee?”
“Of course,” Bianca replied, stretching her legs as she stood from the table.
“Bianca was just trying to warn you, is all,” Dot insisted. She grabbed hold of her purse and patted my arm gently. “There are always people who think they deserve more than they get in a neighborhood like this. Begrudgers, gossips, disgruntled employees—don’t you pay any heed to them. If you need anything at all, you’re always welcome at Bewitching Bites.”
Dot swept out of the kitchen before I could say another word and the ginger cat padded softly after her, purring. I watched as she took a final glance around the room. She pressed her hand to her lips and closed her eyes for a moment, and then she was gone. Bianca nodded to me and I followed her to the door of the apartment, glancing around anxiously for any sign of the old witch. On the doorstep, she turned and faced me—eyes sharp, lips narrow—but she didn’t say another word before she marched down the street after her friend. I noted that Bianca hadn’t told me where to find her should I ever need her help.
Chapter Six
By the time I hauled my tired bones back up the stairs to the apartment; Agatha had reappeared and was prowling around the hallway like a jaguar. She swiveled to glare at me as soon as I closed the apartment door. “Well, did you get any information from those old cows?”
“Information?” I burst through the bedroom door. I really needed some food. And a shower. No, I thought, a bath. I needed a long, hot bath.
The old woman stamped her ghostly feet in irritation. “Information about my murder. Did they do it? Well, not Dorothy, she doesn’t have a bad bone in her roly-poly body, but Bianca? Ha, she’d put a knife in her own mother’s back to make a quick buck.”
“Oh, come on, Agatha. She’d not that bad,” I said, Bianca’s warning about the old lady’s will slithering in the back of my mind. I screwed my face up. “Anyway, it’s all irrelevant.” I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and flicked through the articles about Agatha’s death for the second time that morning before flashing the screen at her face. “You choked on a grape, sorry. Murder solved, no witchcraft necessary.” I raised my hands in a pleading gesture. “Now, could you please leave the room so I can get out of these filthy clothes and have a bath?”
“But it’s not true.” Agatha plonked herself down on the large bed and wrapped a weightless hand around the bars of the wrought iron frame. I slid my cell back into my pocket, taken aback by the ghost’s sudden deflation. I unzipped my bags and pulled out a robe, a bath towel, and some fresh clothes and underwear. I hid the royal blue lacy lingerie set under my towel to prevent Agatha from ranting about young people and their tiny underwear, but the old woman didn’t even glance in my direction as I shimmied out of my clothes and slipped into my robe. The tabby cat sat beside Agatha on the bed and grinned at me as I walked across the room, but the ginger cat hid his head under the comforter. The black cat appeared to have disappeared entirely. If getting undressed was all I had to do to make the cats vamoose, I decided I would happily take up naturalism. I was just about to close the door to the bathroom when the ghost spoke again. “I didn’t just choke on a grape. That couldn’t have been how it all ended. I wasn’t done with life. I wasn’t finished.”
Despite myself, I softened, unable to ignore the depth of sadness in her voice. Sadness, or perhaps, regret. I pressed my palm against the doorframe. “You don’t remember how you died?”
Like breaking a spell, the old woman was back to her usual, exasperated self. “Of course, I don’t remember how I died, you nincompoop. Who the hell remembers their own death? That’s why I need you, to work the memory spell and to avenge my murder.”
I snapped the en-suite bathroom door shut in Agatha’s face, but the old woman walked through it with a smug grin. Muttering under my breath, I twisted the taps and a flood of blessedly warm water gurgled from the spout and splashed into the huge porcelain tub. The bathtub’s clawed feet were beautiful, as were the ceramic tiled floor and the handcrafted wall unit, but I suspected the oversized room would be draughty and cold once winter came again. I made a mental note to figure out how to work the heat in the building, grateful for whoever had ensured there was warm water for my bath. My head was full of the buzz of tiredness and a creeping awareness that talking to a ghost felt more natural than I wanted to admit. “Listen, Agatha, I’m not a witch. I’m a normal, suburban woman. There’s nothing witchy or special about me; sorry to disappoint.”
“What coven do you belong to?” Agatha narrowed her eyes. “Has somebody told you something about me? They’ve told you not to work with me.”
“What? No,” I said. “This is ridiculous. More ridiculous than the darn cats. I don’t know how many times I need to tell you this, lady, but I’m not a witch.”
Agatha waved her hand dismissively. “Of course you are, you scented your letter of application with lavender oil.”
I rooted through the vanity and drawers, casting a glare over my shoulder. “I like essential oils. That doesn’t make me a witch.”