Thorn came back through the front door and practically made me jump out of my skin. “What? What is it?”
I handed him the letter. “It came with the pizza,” I said. “The delivery driver said it was coupons, but obviously it’s not.”
“I’m going to go ask him about this,” Thorn said. “I want you to come with me. You guys can stay in the car while I go into the restaurant and speak to the kid.”
“You can’t, Thorn,” I replied. “It says I’m a witch.”
“It could just be a derogatory slur. Certainly, doesn’t prove you’re a witch,” he said. “Besides, the veil still works at least somewhat, right?”
He was referring to the veil of magic that kept the nonmagical residents of Coventry from seeing the paranormal things going on around them. It was still partially intact, so Thorn was right. The kid would never suspect that I was really a witch.
The trip to the pizza place was a bust other than the manager felt bad and gave Thorn a couple of actual coupons for free pizza. I sat in the car with Meri and Laney while Thorn went inside and talked to the delivery kid first followed by the manager.
Apparently, the kid had no idea who gave him the envelope because nobody really gave it to him. There was a staging counter where they got their deliveries ready, and when he picked up the pizzas to bring to our house, the envelope was on top of them. When I’d asked if they were coupons, the kid didn’t so much as lie as he just didn’t care enough to even think about it. I said they were coupons, and he just wanted to get to the next delivery.
The manager took Thorn in the back to review security footage, but the camera that watched that part of the store was over the entry door. The man who left the envelope was wearing a black hoodie. He came into the pizza place, waited until one of the workers called out our order, reached over the counter and put the envelope on our stack of pizzas, and then left without showing his face to the camera.
“How did he know that we were ordering pizza from there?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Thorn said. “I wonder if security cameras would work at our house now that the magic has chilled out.”
You would have thought that we’d have security cameras at Hangman’s House, but every time Thorn tried, and he’d been trying since we were dating, the magical energy around the house would fry them.
“You could try,” I said. “Do you want me to go to the store tomorrow and get some?”
“That would be great,” he said and kissed my knuckles.
The next day, I did exactly as I promised. I went to the electronics store in the city and got enough security cameras to watch the entire exterior of the house, the garage, and the yard.
Thorn had wanted to install them himself, but I was bored. So, I put Laney in her stroller, got a ladder, and spent the rest of the day attaching them in the suggested locations included in the directions.
Once they were installed, I set up the app on my phone and laptop, and started looking at all the feeds. When I was satisfied that I’d done it all correctly, I sent the link for the app and our camera feeds to Thorn’s phone.
It meant that we could both watch the cameras from inside the house or anywhere using our phones. After a few hours, I checked them again, and they still worked.
Since I was fairly certain that my magic, and the house’s powers, weren’t going to kill the cameras, I called my dad.
“I got some security cameras to actually work,” I said. “The reduction in magic means they don’t die. I’ve had mine installed for a while, and they are still going strong.”
Relieved at the news, my father disconnected so he could go into the city and get cameras for his house and Lilith’s as well. Pretty soon, we’d be able to surveil our homes and maybe catch the stalker.
Thorn checked all of the camera feeds and watched the footage from the day as soon as he got home. We had leftover pizza for dinner, so he sat at the kitchen table and reviewed all of the footage while eating a couple of slices and having a beer.
“Maybe he was around and saw you installing these,” he said. “It could be enough.”
Enough to keep the creep away is what he meant. I doubted it because the stalker had already proved they could get to me without stepping foot on our property, but it did make me feel a little safer at home.
What would be even better is if I could figure out how to fix whatever was wrong with magic. I still thought the two might be related, so the best thing to do was keep pushing forward on finding Samara’s killer.
Chapter Twelve
The morning of Mercy’s funeral, Thorn went off to work, and I got dressed in my funeral dress. It was considered customary for me to attend the funerals of witches in Coventry, so I didn’t even need an excuse to go. Though I did not attend them all, no one would question my presence.
I talked to my mom that morning, and while she was still staying at Lilith’s house, she and my father were making plans for her to move back home. Lilith had been fine since the day I found Mercy on Samara’s porch, and she hadn’t shown any signs of relapse. She was also itching to get everyone out of her house and had already sent Amelda away.
Laney had been a bit restless that morning. She’d actually cried for a couple of minutes when I’d started to do my makeup. It startled me so much
