She smirked. “Because you’re going to help me.”
My stomach turned. This lady was off her rocker. “I am?”
She winked. “Of course. You’re going to tell the police that you interviewed little mousy me, and I saw the old man sit in the chair and kill himself.” She faux pouted. “I saw him kill poor Geoffrey, too.”
My throat went dry. If I pretended to have interviewed the mouse, it would seem likely that Dr. Pendergast had killed Geoffrey. Peter and I had been on our way to arrest him in the first place. If I did what she said, she’d totally get away with it. Except…
“But you know that the dog, Daisy, can smell lies—she’ll know.”
She shot me a dirty look. “You figure that out!” She sneered toward the door and Daisy’s shadow. The doors continued to rattle. Flashes of brightly colored light flared on the other side of the frosted glass as the officers and no doubt Maverick tried various spells to get the doors to open.
I frowned back at her, remembering something from our questioning the other day. “But Daisy said you were telling the truth when you gave us your alibi—you said you were home the night of the murder.”
She sneered, clearly proud of herself. “I live here as a mouse in the walls.”
“What?”
“It’s practical. Why pay rent for a human-sized home when I can live perfectly comfortably here as a mouse.” She smirked. “So I was telling the truth when I said I was home—I was here.”
I gaped at her. Clever. Diabolical, but clever. “Why would I help you? You know I work with the police.”
She raised her brows and looked impressed. “A good cover of your own.”
My stomach froze. Ludolf had said practically the same thing to me. Did people assume that as a shifter I’d only be working with the police as an angle? Would Peter think the same thing if I told him the truth about me?
“Open up!” Maverick’s tall silhouette loomed close, and he banged on the doors.
Mrs. Abernathy tugged at her cardigan and lifted her chin. “Shifters stick together! Plus, you-know-who wouldn’t be very happy with you interfering with his business.”
I gasped. “Ludolf? Your business is one of Ludolf’s?”
The older lady just smirked.
The doors rattled again, a flash of gold light blared blindingly bright, and with a tremendous crash the glass of the doors shattered. In a small flare of light, Mrs. Abernathy shifted into her little brown mouse form just before Peter, Daisy, Maverick, and a half dozen officers stormed in.
28
TRAPPED
Peter rushed toward me, wand drawn, the tip glowing. “Jolene!” The whites shone around his eyes, his face twisted with concern.
Daisy bounded in, and the rest of the officers rushed into the gift shop behind her, along with Maverick. Tiny shards of shattered glass from the doors scattered under their feet.
I glanced to my right, where Mrs. Abernathy the mouse sat watching me with her huge black eyes, whiskers twitching. How could something so cute be such a murderous little deviant?
I stood there, torn, mixed emotions wrestling within me. Ludolf’s presence in my life was, unfortunately, growing. If Mrs. Abernathy was telling the truth, and she ran one of the mob boss’s money lending businesses, turning her in would definitely put me on his detritus list. I’d get a reputation among shifters of being a snitch, and with word already circulating that I didn’t have any magic, I’d have a huge target on my back and no way to defend myself.
It’d be easy to do what Mrs. Abernathy had suggested. I could maybe find some clever way of phrasing things so as to avoid Daisy calling me out, and life would go on as normal.
I gulped as my eyes met Peter’s—so full of concern for me. I pressed my lips tight together. Old Jolene might have done that—might have covered for Mrs. Abernathy, chalked it up to the injustice of the world and doing what I had to do to survive, and gone on as I had before.
But Peter had given me hope that there were decent people on this island, and I wanted to be one. I wanted to be worthy of the admiration he had for me. My brush with the gaping maw of death in Ludolf’s lair had shifted my perspective.
If I was going to go down, which we all would someday, I wanted to go down knowing I’d really lived—or at least tried to. And merely surviving, eking out a meager existence by whatever means necessary—that wasn’t living.
In that split second, I made my decision. I turned from Peter and scanned the nearby displays—keychains, crystal balls and—aha!—replicas of the cursed bowl Quentin had used to serve Geoffrey in his misguided attempt to win his affection.
I grabbed one, sprinted toward the mouse, who whirled and scampered away, then took a flying leap and landed with the bowl upside down on top of it. “Oof!” I lay on the ground, chest and ribs aching, but with Mrs. Abernathy trapped under the wooden bowl in her mouse form.
She squeaked, furious. Let me out! Let me out! You’re going to pay for this! How dare you!
Within seconds, officers surrounded me and Daisy lowered her snout over the bowl and growled, teeth bared. What are you doing, shifter? Why didn’t you let us in yourself? What are you hiding?
I shot her a flat look before glancing around and finding Peter. I craned my neck to look up at him, careful to keep my weight on the bowl and the frantic mouse under it.
“Mrs. Abernathy,” I huffed. I jerked my ear toward the upturned bowl I hugged. “She’s a mouse shifter—and the killer.”
“What?” Peter’s eyes grew even rounder, and the officers around me murmured to each other.
Maverick scoffed. “No chance. Let that poor thing loose.” He limped close.
In a flash of green light, the bowl rose off the floor and I was thrown off. I rolled over into several officers, and
