The Deadly Diadem: A Paranormal Artifacts Cozy Mystery (Paranormal Artifacts Cozy Mysteries Book 2), Tegan Maher [read this if .txt] 📗

I laughed. “Well, I think I put that fear to bed today after we dropped you off at your car.”

“Do tell,” he said, waggling his brows.

I rolled my eyes and took another swig of my beer. “Not like that, you big perv. We had a conversation. He’s a shapeshifter, a mage, and he said he had a few other gifts.” I put the last bit in air quotes.

“That still doesn’t mean he’s not a wicked old mage who thinks you’d taste delicious with some carrots and a dash of salt.”

“Nope, I asked about that part, too. The guy we see is his true form, and I also found out that he and Sybil aren’t in a romantic relationship. And I know for a fact he wasn’t lying. I monitored him.” I didn’t have to say more than that; he knew about my gift.

“Now that’s interesting,” he said, bouncing a finger at me. “You should have led with that. Did he explain why he’s been crawling around in your head?”

“All he said was that he finds me intriguing.”

He huffed out a disbelieving breath. “Translation, he wants to see your Wonder Woman underwear.”

I scowled at him. “That’s not it at all.” Then I thought of the few times I’d caught a look that could have been described as smoldering, or maybe soul-searching. Still, I wasn’t mentioning that in case he hadn’t caught them, too.

“Okay, sweet cheeks, tell yourself whatever you have to in order to sleep at night, but I’ve seen the way he looks at you. If a guy that hot looked at me that way, I don’t know how long I could hold out, which means you’re thinking about it, too.”

So much for him not catching the looks. I should have known better. Eli rarely missed a trick.

A change of subject was in order. “Maris thinks somebody’s stealing from her.”

I explained what she’d told me, and he frowned.

“We’ve known everybody there forever. I can’t imagine one of them dipping into the till, especially not for such a small sum. They know all they’d have to do is ask her for it.”

“I know,” I said, my thoughts troubled. Then something else occurred to me. “What if one of them got their hands on one of our artifacts?”

He furrowed his brow. “One that makes people steal?” He shook his head. “Remember that they’re only activated if the person is already prone to it. They bring out the worst in their victims, and I don’t think any of them are thieves at heart.”

I shook my head. “We don’t know that for sure. At least not about all of them. It’s just a working theory that they’re all like that since we haven’t translated the whole book yet.”

“Fair enough,” he replied, “but it doesn’t feel right.”

Since he was the one with the gift of sensing when something was off, I chose to believe him if for no other reason than I wanted to. “Then who else could it be?”

He shrugged. “A delivery guy? A customer sneaking back there and dipping a hand in when nobody’s looking?”

I thought about that for a second. “That doesn’t fly. They wouldn’t care enough to change the slip even if they knew that’s how she operates.”

“We’ll have to make a point of paying attention, then,” he said. “Reading minds is out of the question, but it couldn’t hurt to take a peek at their feelings in general when they’re near the register. I can’t believe that as good as they are, they wouldn’t feel guilty every time they walked past it.”

That was a great idea, and I was a little disappointed I hadn’t thought of it myself. Glenda, one of their waitresses, had shown up right as I was leaving, and I could have put some feelers out on her while I was there.

Our pool table opened up, and we spent the next hour playing. I beat him for once, which was rare, and bet him the bar tab that I could do it again. I lost, and he laughed.

We switched to Golden Tee, and Axel came scurrying over around the railing. “I need you to spot me a hundo.”

I raised a brow at him. “I bet you do. What happened to making your own luck?”

He lifted a furry shoulder. “Lady Luck is fickle, and she’s not sitting on my side of the table right now. She will, though. I just need a bankroll. C’mon. You know I’ll pay you back.”

Against my better judgment, I pulled a bill from my wallet. “I expect this back. With interest.”

“You know I’m good for it,” he said, snatching it out of my hand.

That much was true.

“Did you just give a hundred-dollar bill to that rotten little rodent?” a nasally voice asked.

I glanced up and groaned. Faith and Hope, the mayor’s twin daughters and our archenemies, stood in front of us wearing tiny mini-skirts and sequined tops more suited to a sleazy nightclub than a working man's bar, but we didn’t have a nightclub. The bane of sitting close to the bathrooms—running into whatever had to go.

“What, jealous all anybody ever hands you are singles?” Eli asked.

Faith glowered at him, but Hope looked smug. “No, we just figured since you let an entire trunk full of cursed objects loose on humanity that you’d be saving your money. I can’t imagine that’s going to be good for business once word gets out to the magical community, and good legal representation isn’t cheap.”

A sense of dread washed over me. If they knew, the Magic Council knew. I kicked myself for not getting ahead of it and telling them upfront.

“Don’t you worry about that,” I said. “We’ve got it under control.”

“Really?” Faith said, arching a heavily penciled brow. “We heard a human died of a curse this morning.”

Oh, man. That was not good.

We had to be careful what we said because we didn’t want it to