Chapter 5 Compliance Concerns
COMPLIANCE CONCERNS
Charlene was on the phone when Bo and I walked into Hawthorne & Associates the next morning, her voice hitting frequencies that made the lobby’s new crystal chandelier vibrate.
“No, Mr. Pemberton, we cannot insure your collection of bearded dragons against ‘spontaneous combustion.’” She paused, her face darkening. “Because it’s a lifestyle choice, not a covered hazard.”
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the coffin,” Bo observed.
“Banshees don’t sleep in coffins.”
“You sure?” my dog said skeptically. “Also, whose bright idea was it to put a crystal chandelier in here?”
“Janet’s,” I replied as the lights began to shake.
We gave the banshee a wide berth and were headed for the express elevator when Fred waved us over from behind the other end of the security desk.
“Hey, did you do something to Didi?!” he hissed as we approached.
Existential guilt had me hunching my shoulders a little. “No. Why?”
“She’s looking for you. She seemed pretty”—the demon paused, searching for the right word—“intense.”
“Didi’s always intense,” I pointed out carefully.
“More intense than usual.” Fred shuddered. “She had that look. You know the one.”
I made a face. “Which one? Didi has many expressions.”
Most of them uncivil, but I kept that one to myself.
“The one she gets before she turns somebody into a frog.”
Bo’s tail drooped at the demon’s words. Yeah, that sounded bad.
My dog and I rode the elevator in tense silence. It deposited us on the fifth floor faster than either of us liked.
Samuel was standing outside his office at the end of the corridor, deep in conversation with Barney. Even from this distance, the mate bond hummed with his presence, a warm pulse of awareness that made my wolf perk up. He caught my eye. His gaze smoldered a little behind his glasses.
My hormones started a mutiny.
Samuel’s mouth curved in a knowing half smile before Barney reclaimed his attention.
I swallowed a sigh. My alpha was hot and he damn well knew it.
I was distracted by the sight of Hugh leaning against the water station as I made my way to my desk. He was scrolling through his phone with the dedication of a man who got paid to be on social media.
He brightened when he spotted me. “Abby. Perfect timing. I need your opinion on something.”
“If it’s about what to wear on your next date, the answer is no.” I frowned. “I still haven’t seen any signs of that T-shirt you borrowed.”
Hugh avoided my eyes. “I’ll return it. After I get it, er, dry cleaned.”
My mouth flattened to a thin line. “You and Beatrice had better not have done anything dirty to it.”
Hugh scratched his cheek sheepishly. “Define dirty.”
Bo sat on his rump, his tail sweeping the floor. “It was super dirty. I can feel it in my bones!”
Hugh cleared his throat at my scowl. “Anyway.” He held up his phone and showed me an image of what appeared to be a very fluffy cat wearing a tiny wizard hat.
“Beatrice suggested I make Pearl go viral. We thought it might be good for the firm’s reputation, considering the recent incidents.
Beatrice agreed we needed some good vibes on social. ”
Bo looked at me. “This guy and his new girlfriend have a death wish.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Pearl would never hurt me,” Hugh said with more confidence than he ought to.
I noted with interest that he didn’t deny he and Beatrice were now a couple.
“Pearl literally tried to push you down the stairs last week,” I reminded him.
“That was a loving tap,” Hugh waved dismissively.
“With the Toe Beans of Death,” Bo contributed with gruesome enthusiasm.
“Besides, look at this filter,” Hugh continued, pointedly ignoring my dog. “It adds sparkles. She’d look majestic with that hat on.”
I decided Hugh’s survival instincts were his own problem and continued toward my desk.
Gavin was already seated at his and was surrounded by a small fortress of fire extinguishers.
Janet’s office door was closed, the muffled sounds issuing from beyond suggesting she was working through some post-full-moon stress.
Nigel and Mindy were nowhere to be seen.
My desk, unfortunately, was not empty.
Didi sat in my chair, her arms crossed. Piles of folders that looked older than some of the vampires I’d met rose next to her elbow.
Her expression could have curdled milk at fifty paces.
Bo shuffled behind me. “You sure you didn’t do anything to that witch?”
“You’ve been with me this entire time,” I muttered.
Didi spotted us and lowered her brows. “You’re late.”
I sighed. “Again, I’m fifteen minutes early.”
She ignored me. “I’ve been here since seven.” She stood and jabbed a finger at my chair. “Sit.”
Since Didi was technically my immediate superior, I sat. Bo wisely retreated under the desk and picked up his squeaky toy.
“What’s going on?” I asked, eyeing the folders warily. They had the musty smell of old magic and bureaucracy, which even in my newly turned werewolf experience was a dangerous combination that screamed overtime.
“We have a situation.” Didi pulled a document from the nearest stack and slapped it down in front of me. “Three weeks ago, the Lincoln sisters officially transferred their Alliance seat to Melody Flowers. I processed the paperwork myself.” She paused. “The agreement was meant to be temporary.”
I studied the document. It looked as legitimate as some of the paperwork I’d become accustomed to reviewing since I started my new job—signatures, seals, all the proper eerie magical verification marks glowing faintly in the margins.
I raised an eyebrow. “Okaaaay?”
“The signatures are genuine. The transfer was legal. Everything checks out.” Didi’s jaw tightened. “But here’s the weird thing. Their clinic licenses are still active but aren’t showing any activity.”
I stared. “Isn’t that normal? They’re on vacation.”
A forlorn squeak issued from beneath my desk.
The look Didi gave me and my dog could have stripped paint. Bo silently released his toy.
“Clinic licenses for practicing witches are tied to their magical signatures,” the witch said. “Every time a registered healer performs a spell, the signature updates automatically. It’s how we track licensing compliance and ensure no one’s practicing without proper credentials.”
I wish I didn’t, but I was beginning to get an inkling where this was going. “And the Lincoln sisters’ signatures—?”
“Haven’t updated in three weeks.” Didi pulled out another document, this one covered in charts and magical notation.
“Look at this. Regular activity, regular activity, regular activity, and then—” She grabbed one of my highlighters and drew a line viciously across the page. “Nothing! All three of them. Same day.”
A chill danced down my spine.
Bo peeked his head out from under my desk. “That’s creepy.”
“Maybe they’re just not practicing while they’re on vacation?” I hazarded lightly.
“The Lincoln sisters are some of the most powerful witches in New England.” Didi’s voice was flat.
“They use magic like breathing. Even on vacation, a witch of their caliber would be performing minor spells constantly. Warming their tea. Freshening their clothes. Turning annoying people into frogs. Adjusting the weather because they don’t like the humidity and it makes their hair frizzy.
” She shook her head. “For all three signatures to just stop? On the same day, at the exact same time?”
Last night’s building meeting and what Mrs. Chen had said at the end rose afresh in my mind.
“So, something’s wrong,” I said quietly.
“Thanks for stating the obvious but yeah, something’s very wrong.
” Didi sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, her expression troubled.
“I’ve been doing compliance work for six years.
I know what normal paperwork looks like and I know what it looks like when somebody’s trying to hide something.
” She tapped the transfer documents. “This is too clean. And their health centers have apparently stopped operating, which is not normal. They have plenty of staff who should have been managing their clinics.”
I frowned as I recalled Melody Flowers’s words at the first Alliance meeting I’d attended a few weeks ago.
The way she’d smiled when she announced the sisters were taking a “well-deserved break,” like the witches were pushing up daisies in an unmarked grave, hadn’t exactly been reassuring.
Daria had even suggested Melody herself might have been responsible for their departure.
“You think they didn’t leave voluntarily,” I said carefully.
“I think three powerful witches don’t just vanish and their magical signatures go dark.
And I think someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure no one asked questions about it.
” Didi frowned. “I mean, it’s bad enough that they’ve been gone this long, their clinics shut down, and no one seems to care.
Daria Tilcott would have picked up on this had she been here, but she’s away on a West Coast inter-coven summit.
” Her expression hardened. “Here’s my problem.
Witch politics are delicate. The covens don’t appreciate outsiders poking around in their business and I’m bound by coven hierarchy whether I like it or not. ”
I didn’t like the sound of this. “Meaning?”
“Meaning if I start investigating and I’m wrong, I’ll be lucky if they only turn me into a frog.” Her mouth flattened to a grim line. “If I’m right, it’ll probably be something much worse.”
I processed this for a moment. Yup, I hated everything the witch had just said.
“Why are you telling me and not Samuel?” I asked, already guessing the answer and fervently wishing I hadn’t.
Gavin’s horns popped out where he’d leaned over a little and was doing his best to pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping.
“Because you’re not bound by coven hierarchy.
” Didi’s eyes met mine squarely. “You’re the Hawthorne luna.
You have influence that has nothing to do with witch politics and your position means the covens can’t just make you disappear without consequences.
” She scratched her cheek. “Especially after your latest powers manifested. As for Samuel, his hands are tied. He has to look after the firm’s interests and his pack above all else. ”
“So, basically, I’m a scary, loose cannon and no one wants to mess with me,” I said sullenly.
Bo had extracted himself fully from under the desk and was following the conversation with the kind of expression that indicated trouble was brewing and he liked it.
“Precisely,” Didi confirmed.
“That’s reassuring,” I muttered.
“It’s practical.” She gathered her folders briskly.
“I need someone who can ask questions. Someone with enough pull that the witches can’t brush them off, but enough distance from coven politics that they won’t see them coming.
” Didi fixed me with a stare that left no room for argument.
“Basically, I need you, the Hawthorne luna. So, are you in?”
I pursed my lips. From the way my wolf was nudging me, she had already made her decision. I blew out a sigh, knowing full well I would probably regret this.
“Yeah, I’m in.”
Bo wagged his tail excitedly. Gavin almost fell out of his chair and accidentally set fire to his suit as he recovered his balance.
Didi ignored the dragon newt, her expression satisfied. “Good. First thing we need to do is tell your alpha. The Hawthornes have maintained neutrality with the witch covens for generations. If we’re going to poke this particular hornet’s nest, Samuel needs to know.”
I grimaced. Samuel was going to love this. “And if he says no?”
“Then we do it anyway and apologize later.” Didi gathered the last of her folders. “But I doubt he’ll say no. Not once he sees what I’ve found.”
She rose and strode off toward her own desk, leaving me surrounded by the lingering scent of old paper and foreboding, a dragon newt who was desperately trying to put out flames and failing miserably, and a dog who was clearly enjoying the thought of me potentially being hexed at some point in the near future.
“Just once, I’d like to have a boring week,” I said to no one in particular.