But— She stopped. Didn’t argue.
Cormac kept driving, west this time, back to town.
* * *
THEY GOT to the Manitou Wishing Well before it opened. On the plus side, there was plenty of parking on the street right out front. He found a coffee shop nearby and bought the biggest coffee they had and a Danish. Enough fuel to keep him going for a couple more hours. He watched the tourist stretch wake up for the day, lights coming on and shops opening, until Judi came to the window and turned the hand-painted sign hung on the door from CLOSED to OPEN.
No point in waiting.
He walked in, found Judi restocking T-shirts and Frida sorting receipts by the cash register. They stared at him and seemed surprised to see him.
He stalked to the counter by Frida, put down the mirror amulet, and turned to face them. Judi had drifted over; they both stared. Esther the cat thudded onto the far end of the counter, curled her tail around her, and blinked calmly at him. Cormac looked at her, sidelong, suspicious, before launching in on it.
“Milo Kuzniak didn’t kill Augustus Crane. Not outright. He probably didn’t know much magic at all, but he had this. Crane killed himself. He went out there to get rid of Kuzniak, and whatever spell he used doubled back and killed him instead. Not sure what exactly this is, what kind of magic is tangled up in it, but it’s some kind of reflective spell. Murder solved. And the bad guys you were worried about? I don’t think they’ll be poking around anymore.”
He leaned on the counter, regarding them, and waited for a response. He seemed to have startled them, which was okay. He’d wait.
Frida pointed at the glass. “Could you not lean on that? I just cleaned it.”
Cormac crossed his arms.
Judi finally nodded. “Right. Okay. That makes sense.” She picked up the amulet. Turned it back and forth in the light. It seemed so harmless, a junk-store trinket. “This little thing? Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.” No need to tell them it had been used to kill another man recently. “That it? Was this what you needed to know?”
The two women looked at each other, exchanging some silent reassurance.
Frida said, “How did you find this? We could never find anything.”
“It took some luck. I had a few contacts. Turned out, Milo Kuzniak’s great-grandson had it. He was following in his ancestor’s footsteps, trying to get gold out of that plateau.” He gave a little shrug.
“Great-grandson?” she said, astonished.
Wasn’t any more unbelievable than anything else about this story.
Frida said, “Then it’s all just this? Whatever lingering magic is up there, it’s not a danger to anyone?”
“I don’t think so. It’s all shadows anymore.”
“Thank you,” Judi breathed, wondering. She replaced the amulet on the counter, gingerly, as if it had burned her.
Cormac asked, “So—you have the key to Amy’s book? Am I worthy?”
He thought she might back out of the deal, or that she had been lying about knowing how to read the book. He expected her to say she didn’t know, and he didn’t know how he was going to deal with it. Not like he could beat up a couple of old women like he beat up Layne.
But Judi nodded, moving around the counter to the back room. “Of course. I’ll go get it.”
That left him face-to-face with Frida, who regarded him with bemusement.
“I didn’t think you’d find anything,” she said. “I figured we’d never see you again. I mostly suggested it to try to get rid of you.”
That was fair, the mistrust being mutual. “What’s in Amy’s book—it’s too important to just let go. I wasn’t going to walk away.”
“I see that now.”
Cormac pushed the amulet across to her. “I figure this is yours. You hired me to find out what happened—this is it.”
Frida regarded it as if it were on fire. Donning a wry smile, she pushed it back. “No, you keep it. I have a feeling you’ll need it more than we ever will.”