Page 36 of Eye on the Ball

I knew that.

“I’m sorry I reacted like that,” I told him. “I should have stayed and talked to you, but it caught me off guard, and it’s been a heck of a week.”

“Come home, honey. And don’t be mad at me. I let your cookies get a little singed.”

“Oh, no!” I was a terrible host. First, I ran out on my guests, and then I let the cookies burn.

Suddenly, the ludicrous nature of that thought struck me, and I laughed. “I’ll buy some cookies while I’m here at the gas station.”

“Store-bought cookies? After a year of your cooking, my standards might be too high for that?—”

“Double-stuffed Oreos.”

“I could hold my nose and eat one or two.”

* * *

The sheriff called me when I was driving home.

“Hey, Susan. Are you recovered from that bad-luck charm?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, but I’m awfully glad I didn’t have my gun with me. That was some powerful magic. I hated everyone and suddenly wanted to tackle Nigel and punch him in the nose. His wife would have drowned me!”

She wasn’t wrong. Phaedra was not a forgiving woman.

Nymph.

Naiad.

Whatever.

“Any luck finding out who put it there?”

“No. It doesn’t make any sense. The only person who didn’t belong at the field this afternoon was Probie Truckman, who stopped by at five-thirty to yell at me for not finding his brother yet. It wouldn’t make any sense for him to put a bad-luck spell on me when he’s counting on me to solve his brother’s disappearance.”

I didn’t understand any of this. To lighten the mood, I told her about my Mrs. and Mr. Frost suspicions.

She laughed. “The worst thing is I wouldn’t put it entirely past them, if I could figure out how the Frosts, who maybe weigh a buck eighty between them, could overpower Ace Truckman. Evenwithher crossbow.”

“No news on Ace, then?”

“No, and it’s the weirdest thing. Nobody in his family has heard a word. The only lead Reynolds says they’ve found is that Probie really hated his cousin. Ace had maneuvered him out of a windfall in the business, apparently, and everyone knows how Ace treated Probie.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t put up with that.” I was so lucky to have a great family, even if my dad had been entangled with the Irish mob at one point. Well, and my grandma was a banshee.

But all families had their little quirks.

“Everybody is back to normal, though. I kept them around for a while to be sure, but whatever Rose did dispersed the dangerous magic completely.”

“She’s a powerful witch. One of the Cardinal witches.”

“They’re one of the strongest magical families in the country. Is she staying with you?”

“Yes, but just for a day or so, I think. She’s due in a couple of weeks with twins. She’ll probably want to be back home soon, but she needed a break from her family’s hovering.”

Susan snorted. “It’s not like we’d know anything about family problems.”

Susan’s family had left her a cursed inheritance and recently tried to kill her, so she won in the “whose family is worse” category. At least my banshee grandmother only gave me an ordinary car.