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  I couldn’t believe it.

  Jack’s death was not part of the plan. A whirling cacophony of pain shot through me, threatening to suck me under, but I clawed my way back up to the surface of sanity.

  Shelley. I still had to rescue Shelley. It’s what Jack would have wanted too.

  Olga laughed, and the last shreds of her sanity disappeared right before my eyes. “He killed my son. I’m going to slice him up slowly, piece by piece. His pain will fuel my magic for a very long time.”

  She pulled out a knife from somewhere in the folds of her robe, and she leaned down and stabbed Jack’s leg. I screamed, but Jack didn’t even flinch. She laughed at me again, and I scanned the area, desperate for help.

  Where were Lucky and his commandos? Jack must have warned them not to attack, in case Olga or the witches killed Shelley. Damn it.

  A flicker of movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. Something in the shed. I tried not to look directly at it, in case it was Shelley, but just then Olga stabbed Jack again, this time in the arm, and I made a break for it.

  I ran as fast as I could toward the shed, and on my way I clenched my hand into a fist and punched one of the chanting witches in the face, as hard as I could. Since Velocity = Speed + Level of Fury, I clocked that bitch.

  I hit the door to the shed, still running full out, and almost ran over Shelley. She was bound and gagged but still alive. Still alive.

  Thank God, thank God, thank God.

  I just didn’t know for how long.

  I untied her and gently pulled out her gag. She threw herself into my arms, sobbing and shaking, and I wanted to kill Olga with a white-hot fury.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I soothed her, even though I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t be.

  The door slammed shut.

  “I couldn’t have planned it any better myself,” Olga said from outside the door. She was panting from exertion, and she was speaking in a weird sing-song voice, but at least she wasn’t stabbing Jack. “I’ll sacrifice two for the price of one. Maybe even three, if your shifter boyfriend lasts until midnight, but I doubt he will.”

  I heaved in a deep breath and realized I was sick and damn tired of letting Olga Kowalski have the last word. I glanced around at the dim, damp interior of the shed, and I smiled.

  “Think again, witch,” I said, very softly, and I grinned at Shelley, who didn’t flinch at all. She flashed a fierce grin right back at me and handed me the garden tool I’d been staring at.

  And then I smashed open the door, and tripped over Olga’s feet and landed on my face. Not my plan at all.

  “You are going to die right now, you stupid bitch,” she snarled at me, raising her hands.

  “No!” Shelley screamed, and the little girl came up behind Olga and hit her in the arm with a rake. It was enough to skew the witch’s aim, but the spell still bit into my arm with a blast of searing pain. If it had hit me in the face, where she’d been aiming, I’d probably be dead.

  And if I didn’t suck it up and get up off my ass, she’d kill me now.

  The witch turned her attention to Shelley, raising her hands again, and I tried to grab the shovel I’d dropped. My arm, though, was screaming with pain, dripping blood, and refusing to cooperate, so I rolled over to try to use my other arm.

  “Leave her alone,” I screamed, trying to ignore my injured arm even though nothing had ever hurt that much before, and I was probably going to die from the pain any second, but I’d be damned if I wouldn’t take her with me.

  I swung the shovel at the back of Olga’s knees and knocked her down. Her head bounced off the ground, hard, and I yelled “yes!” with a hoarse, primal triumph.

  But it was too little, too late.

  “Now you watch the child die,” Olga screamed at me, and then she aimed those evil, death-dealing hands at Shelley again.

  “I am so sick of you,” I shouted. I kicked the witch in the side and then jumped up, my arm still burning like it was on fire. I yanked the shovel up and then rammed its blade into Olga’s throat so hard that it took her head halfway off her neck. “How’s that for poetic justice?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Behind me, Shelley cheered.

  But the witches kept chanting.

  One of the six remaining witches, a woman with half of her hair shaved off and the other half dyed green, stood up and stretched. She was wearing a red leather jacket, and it might not have been Chantal’s, but I wanted to tear it off of her anyway.

  The cavalry, in the form of Lucky and his team, came pouring into the yard and surrounded the chanting women, but this one didn’t even glance at them.

  “You forgot about a witch’s death curse, fool,” the woman told me calmly, as if she were discussing the weather. “Hers was already primed to seek you out.”

  I looked down at Olga’s nearly decapitated body. “I don’t think she’s in any shape to curse anybody.”

  Green Hair just laughed and then knelt down and put her hands on top of her head when Lucky came running up to her.

  “Yes, take me into custody,” she told him. “This is going to be a very bad place to be, very soon.”

  I decided to ignore her empty threats and reached back to take Shelley’s hand. I needed to get her away from that horrible shed and the sight of Olga’s body. Across the field, Jack sat up, and I almost cried out in relief. Shifter healing—I’d counted on it.

  The commandos secured all the witches, gagging the ones who wouldn’t shut up. When the chanting finally stopped, some of the horrible pressure that had been building and building in the air lifted.

  Finally.

  The good guys were going to win this one.

  But before Shelley took more than three steps out into the sunlight, the coalescing shadows that had been circling Olga’s body packed themselves into the shape of a battering ram and shoved us both back into the shed. This time, when the door slammed shut, I couldn’t get it open again. The screaming pain in my arm was starting to subside, but the arm was still weak, and I had no one-handed tricks for opening sheds up my sleeve.

  Shelley and I pounded on the door and shouted for help. Jack yelled at us to hang on, that he’d get us out, and I tried to believe it, but I was running low on faith.

  I couldn’t tell Shelley that, though. “It’s okay. Jack will get us out.”

  But she didn’t hug me back. Her little body was stiff as a board in my arms, and when I looked down at her, she was staring in terror at the back corner of the shed, where those dark shadows were gathering.

  “No, Miss Tess. I don’t think it is going to be okay,” she said, and there was a terrible resignation in her voice.

  I opened my mouth to say something—anything—to reassure her, and a thunderous explosion rocked the shed.

  “Come on,” I shouted. “We have freaking had enough of this!”

  Naturally, that’s when the shed caught on fire.

  “Stand back,” Lucky shouted.

  I had about three seconds to wonder where Jack was when the enormous tiger smashed through the door, roaring with such primal fury that the shadows apparently figured that they’d had enough too, because this time they didn’t try to stop us. Maybe shutting us in the shed and setting it on fire had been the extent of Olga’s death curse. Anybody who didn’t have a tiger backing her up would have died, after all.

  I covered Shelley’s eyes, so she didn’t have to see Olga. The commandos picked the witch’s body up, careful not to touch her skin or her blood, and threw it in the shed, and we all stood back at a safe distance and watched so we could be sure it burned. Jack, still in tiger form, stood between us and the shed, lashing his tail and snarling at the fire.

  “So ends the reign of black magic in Dead End,” I said with grim satisfaction.

  Shelley, standing next to me, nodded. “I’m glad she’s dead. I hope she goes to Hell.”

  I felt the same way, but I also wondered how much therapy this girl was going to need af
ter what she’d been through.

  “She killed my mom and my grandparents,” she said, reaching out to pet Jack’s fur.

  “I know, sweetheart. But she’ll never kill anybody again.”

  Jack roared in agreement, and then he head-butted me to get me going. We left Lucky and his crew to watch the fire, just in case, and we walked around the house toward the truck. I was so exhausted I was tripping over my own feet, but suddenly I had a horrible thought.

  “It’s not over,” I said. “Hank got away. And there’s still the sheriff to worry about. He wants to arrest you, Jack.”

  Shelley tightened her hand on mine, and she started to whimper.

  “It’s okay, honey. I’m sure they’re both far away from here by now.”

  Jack’s ears suddenly swiveled forward, and I tensed. I really wanted my shotgun.

  It wasn’t Hank, or the sheriff. Instead, Special Agent Vasquez and Deputy Kelly walked around the corner.

  “Hank Kowalski did not get away,” Vasquez said, bowing slightly to me.

  Jack bared his teeth, and Vasquez laughed.

  “I am not flirting with your lady, my friend. I have my own very special white-magic witch at home. I am just telling you both the good news.”

  Between one step and the next, Jack transformed back into his human form. “You caught Hank?”

  Deputy Kelly grinned and looked at me. “You might say that Ms. Callahan caught him. She parked that truck so badly that he couldn’t get his out of the garage, so he was running down the road on foot when we found him.”

  My mouth fell open, and then I started laughing. “Yay, me. Bad parking for the win.”

  “If we can weaponize your singing, you’ll be unstoppable,” Jack said, his lips quirking. “By the way, what was the death you foresaw for Hank?”

  A bolt of triumph, combined with a twinge of guilt, shot through me at the question. “Actually, I didn’t see his death at all. I was faking the vision to try to distract him.”

  Jack stared at me in shock. “You thought of that on the spot? That’s brilliant. That scream—I was sure you saw the worst death imaginable for him.”

  “So was he,” I said. “That was the point.” Still, we had a loose end. “The sheriff?”

  Alejandro answered me. “To paraphrase a popular song, I shot the sheriff.”

  “Good,” I said bitterly. “Is he dead?”

  “I never miss, when I aim,” Alejandro said. “It is my own small magic.”

  “You didn’t exactly answer her question,” Jack pointed out.

  Alejandro raised an eyebrow, the picture of innocence. “Didn’t I? Well, as Ms. Callahan mentioned to me once, there are deep, dark, Black Ops sites in the world.”

  I decided to let it go. Shelley was safe, Jack was alive, and so was I. I was sure that wherever Sheriff Lawless was, I’d never see him again.

  “Why did Olga’s death curse let us go?” I looked at Jack. “It was like those shadows were afraid of you.”

  He shrugged. “A shifter has his own magic, and I’ve already been dead once. Maybe the shadows recognized something in me. Or maybe even in you, with your death visions. When it comes to magic, we might never know the answer.”

  I sighed. He was right. I didn’t like not knowing why, but I was glad they were gone.

  “Susan?”

  Deputy Kelly pointed. Susan was consulting with a group of black-suited men who must have poured out of the five black SUVs that were lined up along the side of the road.

  “Your Deputy Gonzalez would be a good choice for Dead End’s next sheriff,” Alejandro mused. “Very efficient, that one. She helped me out of a tight spot.”

  That reminded me. “Why didn’t you call me back?”

  He shrugged. “I was tied up.”

  He didn’t say anything else, but I noticed when he gently touched Shelley’s shoulder in a farewell gesture, and his jacket sleeve slid back, that there were vivid rope burns on his wrist. Somehow, I knew better than to ask about it.

  Deputy Kelly headed off to do official things, and Alejandro said he had to get back to his family.

  Before he left, he shook hands with me and then with Jack. “So no chance you want a job with P-Ops?”

  Jack laughed. “Not even a tiny chance. I’ve had enough of being a soldier.”

  “If you change your mind, you know how to reach me,” Alejandro said, smiling ruefully. “I think you would have made a fine partner, my friend.”

  Jack looked at me. “I’ve got a partner. I’m staying in Dead End.”

  My insides did a little happy dance, but I tried not to show it on my face. Alejandro walked away, sketching us a quick salute, but then Shelley yawned, and Jack scooped her up and carried her to the truck.

  Lucky’s truck.

  “Oh, I forgot, with everything else going on. I’m going to need a new car,” I told him, remembering the sad state of mine. “I’m thinking that it had better be a Ford, this time.”

  “Uncle Mike will be very happy,” Jack said, with a gleam in his eye.

  “Sure. Right up till the moment he hears you call him Uncle Mike.”

  My phone rang. It was Alejandro. I looked up, surprised, but the federal agent was already in his car, driving away.

  “I forgot to ask you if there was anything I could do for you. Anything at all,” he said. “You saved P-Ops from a great deal of embarrassment today.”

  “That’s what I live for,” I said dryly.

  “Anything at all, Ms. Callahan.”

  I looked at Shelley, who was falling asleep against Jack’s shoulder. “Well. There is one thing.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  One month later

  I waved goodbye to the last of the GYSTers, pleased with the number of sales we’d made from the tour bus that day, and Shelley looked up from her perch in front of the cash register.

  “Three hundred and thirty-nine dollars, and seventeen cents,” she said in her serious little voice. My new little sister didn’t fool around when it came to math.

  That had been my favor, of course. I’d asked Alejandro to work his Federal Agent Magic to allow us to adopt Shelley into our family. She lived with Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby most of the time. They adored her too. She also spent a lot of weekends and school holidays at my house, and she liked to come do homework and help at the shop.

  My cat was in belly-rub heaven, and thought that our new family member was the best ever, except for that one ill-advised time that Shelley had tried to paint Lou’s toenails pink.

  “Can I go outside and see how the construction is coming along?”

  I smiled at her. “Why don’t we both go?”

  Shelley grinned and skipped around the counter toward me. The therapist told us that it would take quite a while for Shelley’s nightmares and fear of abandonment to go away, but we understood that, and we had all the patience in the world. Uncle Mike had already been called into action a time or two to wipe away tears out on the old porch swing, and Aunt Ruby had baked cookies like there was going to be a shortage of flour or sugar any day.

  Most of it helped, most of the time. When it didn’t, Jack stepped in and took Shelley on long hikes, or for a swim, or for airboat rides out in the swamp with Lucky and the boys. Day by day, she was getting better.

  When Mr. Chen came back, Jack officially traded me his half of the pawnshop for half of the acreage it stood on, and hired Dave to build him an attached office. Apparently there was more than just Atlantean gold in Jack’s bank account, and he could afford to take his time and consult on every step of the construction. I figured that was more about reconnecting with Dave than from any real need to oversee the building, but Jack just smiled that deliciously slow smile at me when I suggested it. When the office was ready, he planned to officially reopen Tiger’s Eye Investigations.

  Shelley had come up with the motto.

  Sometimes it takes a tiger’s eye to see the truth.

  Me? I was trying to learn more about my vis
ions. It was time to quit hiding from them.

  Before we reached the door, the little bell tinkled and Otis ambled into the shop.

  Oh boy.

  “Hello, Ms. Tess, Miss Shelley. I reckon I’m back for Fluffy today.”

  Shelley stared at me with worried eyes, but I squeezed her hand and glanced over at Fluffy, who now had pride of place on her own shelf next to the cash register. Aunt Ruby had crocheted the alligator a jaunty amber scarf that was almost exactly the color of Jack’s tiger eyes.

  “You know what, Otis? I think I’d like to buy Fluffy from you and keep her as the Dead End Pawn Mascot. Do you think we can work something out?”

  Twenty minutes and three hundred dollars later, Fluffy was mine. Shelley and I walked outside. She ran over to Jack, who was talking to Dave, and started telling them all about our day. By the time I reached them, she and Dave had walked off to examine a new shipment of tiles that had come in that morning.

  Jack watched her dance around Dave, full of questions and chatter, and he smiled. “I bet you were just like that at her age.”

  “I was worse,” I admitted. “Not just at that age, either. When I was in high school, I was convinced that my chemistry teacher was a snake shifter.”

  “Mr. Washington?”

  “Yeah. Poor guy. He couldn’t help his speech impediment.”

  Jack started laughing. “Tess. Mr. Washington is a snake shifter.”

  Respectfully Submitted,

  Tiger’s Eye Investigations

  Buy the next book in the Tiger’s Eye Mystery Series –

  Private Eye, coming February 2, 2016

  When Tess Callahan, new owner of Dead End Pawn, meets her grandmother the banshee, life is about to get complicated. When Tess’s partner Jack Shepherd, tiger shapeshifter and P.I., gets involved to help them investigate a banshee-kidnapping spree, life is about to get deadly. Because nothing is ever simple in Dead End, Florida, and sometimes it takes a tiger’s eye to see the truth.

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