First Chapter of Hisses, Hexes, and Homicide

Asking Aneksi to be my lookout while I jimmied the cash register’s lock probably wasn’t the smartest move, but sometimes I forget she’s a cat. An immortal cat who occasionally transforms into a tiger and who speaks with a prim British accent, but still a cat with distinctly catlike priorities. Once she found that sunny corner in the display window, she completely lost interest in me, curled up in the warm spot, and conked out.

That’s why I didn’t notice the footsteps behind me as I poked and jiggled the lock with my shiny new pick and tension wrench.

“Rebecca, you know the key is in the office. Don’t you?”

I froze, but it wasn’t disapproval in my grandfather’s voice. It was amusement.

“It looks so easy in the videos. I must be doing something wrong.” I dropped the tools on the counter and rubbed my temples.

“What’s the point of learning to pick locks, anyway? Our keys work perfectly well. Is there something you haven’t told me?” He slipped his wire-rimmed glasses down his nose and gave me a long look. It was his serious, I-am-your-grandfather look, and it made me feel like I was still in pigtails instead of the newly minted manager of Cuthbert Exotic Antiques, an unusual little shop packed with global handicrafts and replicas of treasures from the ancient world.

“Something for everyone,” my grandfather liked to say, and I suppose that explained why he shelved mass-produced tchotchkes like pyramid paperweights and tin King Tut pencil boxes alongside finely crafted statues, exquisite jewelry, and other tomb-worthy finds.

Now wasn’t the time to discuss the delicate art of merchandise display, however. He wanted an answer, and I was stalling.

“I’m trying to be better prepared.”

His scowl deepened. “I hardly see how picking the cash register’s lock helps anyone.”

“It’s not the cash register I’m worried about, and maybe I’ll never need to pick a lock, but I think a person in my situation should be prepared.”

“Prepared for what?”

Did he really not understand what I was getting at? He was well into his seventies, but his mind was sharper than anyone I knew. Including me, and I wasn’t even half his age.

How could he overlook the fact that we had a collection of cursed artifacts to track down? I glanced around to be sure it was still just Aneksi, Stirling, and me in the shop. After that unfortunate incident with the vent last month, I didn’t want to take any chances. I lowered my voice. “Prepared to retrieve your stolen heirlooms.”

He pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I hardly think we’ll find the Hexes by picking locks.” That was Aneksi’s name for them, which she’d insisted she’d learned from Cleopatra during her time as the ancient queen’s pet. Or companion. Or whatever. I still wasn’t clear about the details.

“Maybe, but it couldn’t hurt. ‘A good detective must be as proficient in the criminal arts as the criminals themselves, if she intends to bring them to justice.’”

“Another pearl of wisdom from your Adelaide Morris, I presume? Need I remind you she’s solving crimes from the turn of the last century, and, oh, what was that other thing?” He glanced up at the ceiling and tapped his lips. “Oh yes, she’s not real. You cannot follow the advice of a fictional woman. She’s merely a figment of some writer’s imagination.”

“Sherlock Holmes is fictional, but people quote him all the time.”

He stared at me with those wide green eyes. The same green eyes I saw when I looked in the mirror. “You focus on keeping the artifacts still safely tucked away in the vault safe from harm,” he said. “I’ll deal with getting the rest of them back. What was stolen under my watch is my responsibility. I couldn’t live with myself if I put you in danger again.”

The desperation in his voice reminded me I wasn’t the only one in mourning. I’d lost my parents, but Stirling Cuthbert had lost his son, who he hadn’t seen or spoken to since before I was born.

When Stirling reached out to me after the funeral, it had meant the world to me. I’d believed I had lost the only family I had, but he showed me I wasn’t alone. I still had him. Now, he’s all I have left, and sometimes I forget that I’m all he has too.

It was understandable that he would be overly protective sometimes, but there were cursed objects out in the world that had to be found before they could hurt someone. As much as Stirling might want to shoulder that responsibility alone, he needed my help. The theft wasn’t his fault. That vault in the basement had more cobwebs than a pharaoh’s tomb, and if it was ever orderly, that order had been buried beneath decades of neglect long ago.

If I was being honest, I wanted to be helpful. Maybe I even needed it. From the moment Stirling explained how his grandfather had brought these artifacts back from Egypt only to discover they held dangerous powers and then dedicated his life to hiding them away to protect the public, something changed inside me.

It triggered something I’d never experienced before. Not when I thought I was destined to one day take over my parents’ bookstore in our hometown of Elk Pass, Montana, or when I expected to become Mason Morretti’s wife. This was something completely different.

Sometimes people call it an epiphany. That sounds like it’s a thought or an idea, though, and it wasn’t that. This was a feeling. A heart-pounding, toe-tingling, take-my-breath-away kind of feeling.

When Stirling explained the Cuthbert Legacy, that our family was responsible for protecting the world from the artifacts that landed in J.P. Cuthbert’s possession, I knew it was what I was meant to do. It was what I was always meant to do. I just hadn’t known it.

This was my purpose.

The fact that Aneksi, who had technically been one of those cursed objects, had almost instantly attached herself to me—or maybe it was me to her, the line tended to blur—made me even more committed to the cause.

I couldn’t sit on the sidelines and do nothing. But Stirling had a point. Following the advice of a fictional sleuth and picking locks wasn’t the answer, at least not by themselves. So, it was a good thing that wasn’t the extent of my preparation. I was also going to learn the art of self-defense as soon as I found a proper teacher. I had someone in mind, but I hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask yet.

Stirling was still staring at me with that pleading look in his eyes.

I shoved my lock picks in my back pocket. “I won’t do anything stupid, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He sighed and nodded. “You’re too smart for that. Just don’t let my problems become your problems. That’s all I ask.”

“Understood.” If he noticed that wasn’t exactly an agreement, he didn’t show it.

My phone vibrated on the counter beside the cash register. I grabbed it and hit the decline button. If it was who I thought it was, I had nothing to say to him. But the name on the screen stopped me. Why was Luna Sage calling? She was supposed to be delivering dozens of freshly baked petit fours to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Downtown Merchants Association, and as much as she’d been anticipating the opportunity to show off her new business venture and maybe snag some new clients, I doubted she was calling to chat.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Stirling. “Do you mind if I take this?” I showed him the screen.

“Not at all,” he said. “Say hello to Luna for me. I’ll be in the office, getting the register’s key.”

He seemed to think it was a friendly call, but I knew something was wrong.

So did Aneksi. She had risen from her slumber and was sitting in the window between a tin Tutankhamen sarcophagus and a new but ancient-looking clay fertility doll, staring at me with those startling blue eyes of hers.

I tapped the button to accept the call. “What’s up? Is everything all right?”

“No, it’s awful!” She was nearly hysterical.  

Stirling was halfway to the office, but I turned anyway for more privacy. “What happened? Are you all right? Are you at the ceremony?”

All I heard on the other end was a gasp for air between sobs. Something had gone terribly wrong.

I stepped away from the cash register and went to the glass door. The Downtown Merchants Association was on the second floor of a building across the traffic circle from the shop. Eucalyptus and elm trees that surrounded the fountain in the central plaza partially blocked my view, but I could still see the door to the stairway that led to the upper offices. There were a few pedestrians walking their dogs, otherwise that side of the street was quiet.

“What happened? Did something happen to the petit fours?” What else could upset her like this? It was apparently the wrong thing to say because it set off another round of heaving sobs.

After a full minute, she finally took a deep breath. Then, with a still shaky voice, she said, “You have to come. I think I killed the mayor.”