I turned my head and coughed to cover up the jaw drop I’d experienced. Missy thought the book was still the real book, but covered with a spell?

“Then perhaps you aren’t the witch I thought you were,” Gran said.

Missy let out a low hiss that filled the air. “May I remind you that you are dead, and I am not?”

“I’m quite aware,” Gran said, her words dry as a popcorn fart. “The fact that you feel the need to remind me makes me wonder if dementia has finally begun to set in. Was your mother not affected by the brain fog? Perhaps you need to speak to a doctor before you try any more spells. I’d hate to see them backfire on you.”

I couldn’t resist. “You mean like when she set herself on fire?”

Gran nodded solemnly. “True, I often forget about that slip. Terrible.”

Missy vibrated where she stood. “Celia, you have no power.” She thumped the doorframe with her cane as if she’d like to thump Gran the same way. “Tell me how to read the damn book!”

Oh, she broke out an almost-a-cuss word.

Still shaking, she hit the frame of the house again, and Gran actually took a half step back. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Missy spun, and leaning heavily on her cane, she strode down the steps and through the garden, switching off the heads of plants as she went like a petulant child.

The gate slammed behind her and I watched as she left a veritable cloud in her wake.

“You’re going to have to be careful of her.” Gran shook her head. “I can’t stop her like I used to.”

“I’m not worried. Nothing in that spell book, remember?”

Gran reached out and brushed a hand over my face. “But when she figures out that she’s been duped, it will be a dangerous moment for you. She’s not evil, Breena, but she’s dark. There is a difference.”

Her words unsettled me for reasons I couldn’t pinpoint, but I found myself stepping out of the house and following the path out to the gate. The air in the garden felt tense, tight, and not unlike the coming of a storm.

I didn’t like it.

Our neighbor’s little girl, Charlotte, was across the street jumping rope. She paused and waved at me, flashing a big grin with a single missing tooth, her long dark hair in pigtails off to the sides of her neck. I waved back, forcing a smile. “Hey.”

“Is Eric baking cookies today?” she asked. “He said I could come get some before I leave for New Orleans.”

“I think he just stepped out but come by later. I’m sure he’ll have something,” I said, wondering where he’d gone. Maybe to talk to Kinkly?

“Oh, that’s great. I told my auntie and uncle that he makes the best cookies, and I said I’d bring some with me this time.” She leaned on her fence and stared across the street at me, waiting for a car to go by before picking up her thread. “My mom is being deployed again. I don’t know for how long. So I want to take enough cookies to last me for a while.”

I swallowed the prickling worries I had running through me. “But you’ll have fun with your auntie and uncle, right?”

She shrugged. “I guess. They live in an apartment. It’s smaller than our house here, but they think our place is haunted. Which is funny, because I’m pretty sure they have a ghost living with them.” She sighed and leaned hard on the fence. I looked past her to the house and nodded. I didn’t think it was haunted, but I knew there was something supernatural living in the basement. I’d seen a tiny figure darting in and out a few times in the shadows of dawn and dusk.

“You know, they’re probably right. Most places in Savannah have a spirit or two. But like my gran, they’re there to watch over the people who live here. To protect them.”

Charlotte grinned. “I know that. Our ghost is named Bridgette. She talks to me sometimes through the vents.”

Of course she did. That earned a real smile from me. “Come over later, Charlotte. You can have as many cookies as you can carry.”

She gave me a double thumbs-up and went back to her jump rope. She was a sweet girl, and I felt bad that her mom was being deployed again. That was the life of an army brat, though—you went where your family went, or you got shipped off to another family. At least according to her mom, Ryoko.

I gave her a last wave and headed back into the house. My mind was all wrapped up with Missy’s visit. She’d threatened Gran, which I didn’t like, but then again, what could she do to a ghost? Not much, methinks.

The kitchen was a mess, so I started in on the dishes. I couldn’t help myself. My years with Alan had made me a little bit . . . crazy about a clean house. He’d never done the cleaning himself—no, he hated cleaning—but he’d always been quick to tell me what I’d done wrong and how I could do it better, all the while acting as though he never made a ducking mess.

“Son of a mother ducking donkey!” I all but threw a pan into the water, sending a splash of suds out onto the floor.

A throat cleared. “I know I haven’t been around.”

I spun to see Corb standing there, staring at his shoes. “Look, I’m sorry. I know I was a bastard. I wasn’t honest with you, and I should have been, right from the start.”

A sigh slid out of me. “You aren’t the bastard. Alan is.”

Corb didn’t look up. “I messed up too, Bree. I . . .”

I waited, but he struggled to find words. So I helped him out.

“Look, did you divorce me after treating me like shit for twenty years? Constantly nitpick my faults? Pin me with every debt we ever accrued together and then some? Lawdy gawd only knows what the final tally is! And I let him, that’s the worst part, Corb. I let him because I thought that was what a wife should do. I thought I had to stick it out.”

I breathed out the words and my knees failed me. They damn well buckled as a hot flush of horror slid through me. As much as I wanted to just hate Alan and his games, I had played a part in them, and I had to own that.

I’d let it happen, afraid to rock the boat.

“How, Corb? How the . . . how did he do this? No judge would have approved this B.S. This is not how the legal system works!”

I was on my butt on the hardwood floor, looking up at the underside of the table as if there were answers to be found etched into the wood. Corb lowered himself into a crouch beside me.

“Best I can tell, he had some help from the shadow world. You were right about that, though I wasn’t able to get many details. I’ve been looking since you asked me.” He reached out, carefully took my hand and then covered it with his other hand. “It’s how he moved up the ranks so quickly in his office. How he made partner without truly putting in the work. I think he’s been at this for a while. The signs are all there now that I’m actually looking for them.”

I bit my lower lip and looked at him. “That’s how he screwed me over.” I’d known it. I’d known there was no other way Himself could have gotten away with so much.

“Yeah, it’s how he screwed you over. Completely unethical even in the shadow world, but you know how seriously supernatural people take their bargains. There must be a copy of that deal somewhere. We just have to find it. He tried to steal your gran’s spell book and her talisman she gave you; that had to be part of the deal.” He sat and scooted around me until I was in the cradle of his arms, his legs to either side of me. “Whoever he’s working with has some major mojo. I’m sorry I ever discussed this world with Alan. I never would have if I’d thought he’d take me seriously.”

His words slowly sunk in and I closed my eyes. “That’s why you were at his office building that day I ran into you? You were telling him about the shadow world?”

Because Corb had been there the day I’d found out that Himself had taken my house out from under me and had me evicted (Gran’s house wasn’t the only one he’d stolen). I’d gone to his office to confront him, only to find Corb in the elevator. He’d walked to Himself’s office with me, so both of us had gotten an eyeful of Alan banging the tar out of his new lady lawyer friend. I couldn’t have cared less at that point. We were already divorced—if only by days—and even if we hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have cared anymore. Thinking back, though, the look in her bright hazel eyes irritated me still. Like she relished hurting me. As if it had been personal for her too.

Maybe it had been.

“No,” Corb said slowly as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep going. “I’d already told him about it by then. He asked me to come down and look over this contract he was signing with someone in the shadow world. Must have been the last of all this shit. I didn’t end up looking at it because I was busy helping you get out of the building before the police caught up.”

Yes, there were police involved, and a high-speed chase through downtown Seattle prior to my arrival at Alan’s office. What can I say? When I’m riled up—aka evicted from my own house—you really shouldn’t cross me.

It had surprised me when Corb had reached out on Facebook and offered me a place to stay—and like I said, it had surprised him even more when I’d shown up at his doorstep, interrupting a hookup session.

“I’m sorry, Bree. I had no idea he’d—”

I waved a hand. “It’s not your fault he’s a useless limp dick. Good for nothing but disappointing everyone.” I paused a moment, a thought coming to me before I pressed on. “Is that why you offered to help me? Because you felt responsible?”

“To ease my guilt?” Corb nodded and rested his forehead against my shoulder. “Yeah. Initially. There’s more, though.”

I wasn’t sure I could handle more right in the middle of my pity party. “Another time, okay? Was there a reason you came by today? Or was it just to confess that you’re a bastard?” If he knew who was helping Alan, I wish he’d just come out and say so.