Chapter 11
Valerie
I peeled out of my coat and hung it on the rack beside my potted palm tree. With a heavy sigh, I flicked a silver bell ornament dangling from one of its branches, letting the silvery jingle settle over my office.
Removing the heartstones from my coat pocket, I tucked the velvet pouch into my desk drawer and locked it. Then I cleared the odd thickness from my throat and wiped away what I was sure were melted snowflakes from my eyes.
A portable heater hummed in the corner, the vents angled toward my desk. I cranked it higher and surveyed my little slice of Sunbelt tucked away inside the frigid Snowbelt fortress.
Fine. I was being overdramatic. Snowbelt had a pretty swanky gym with a sauna on the sixth floor. But I still loved my red-and-gold lava lamp, my mini sand-globe collection perched on whitewashed shelves, and the cozy fleece blanket tossed over the back of my chair.
You can take the witch out of the sunshine, but you can’t take the sunshine out of the witch.
With the last of the draft gone, I shook my shoulders to relieve their tension, banishing all thoughts of my frostbitten husband as I settled in front of my computer.
I spent the next two hours buried in the cold case file log, munching on caramel popcorn someone had left in the breakroom.
There were about two hundred active cold cases in the archives, mostly miracles gone sideways, historical landmarks that had wound up in an endless legal limbo, and plenty of love stories that never stuck.
I read through the descriptions until the line items blurred, color-coding ones that seemed like a good fit. While every one of them deserved their second chance, and my full attention, I couldn’t decide between them.
A few had already been claimed by the other agents on my team, and I counted the selections, realizing I was the last one to make my pick. I rubbed my palm over my tired eyes and decided to let the universe narrow it down for me. Fate had always been my friend, and it wouldn’t let me down now.
On the corner of my desk sat an Advent calendar with twenty-four tiny drawers, each painted in bright holiday colors. Yesterday’s had held a square of chocolate. Today, it was going to hold my destiny. I shut my eyes, took a breath, and opened one at random.
Number eight.
“All right, Universe,” I said, unwrapping the chocolate square and popping it into my mouth. “Let’s make it interesting.”
I’d arranged exactly sixteen meet-cutes since joining the agency, mostly for smaller holidays, with one big Christmas match each year. So sixteen times eight equaled: Case 128.
With the taste of chocolate destiny lingering on my tongue, I scrolled the case log until I hit Case 128.
Except there wasn’t one. I squinted at the list. The numbers jumped cleanly from 127 to 129.
I frowned. “That’s weird.”
The cursor blinked where the number should’ve been, like it was daring me to look. And the only place to look was the basement, where we stored the cold case files.
I grabbed the fleece blanket off my chair, wrapped it around my shoulders, and trudged toward the elevator. When the doors slid open on the basement floor, I hesitated, staring into the gloomy subterranean level as weak fluorescent lights blinked on.
The air felt ten degrees colder down here, and it smelled faintly of old paper, ozone, and the ever-present scent of peppermint.
I swore they piped the mint through the vents, or maybe it seeped up through the foundation.
A whisper of sleeping magic drifted through the air, soft as static, and the buzz lifted the hairs on my arms.
“Great,” I muttered, stepping off the elevator and tightening the blanket around my shoulders. “Nothing spooky about a case graveyard in a miracle coven’s basement.”
My heels tapped against the linoleum, echoing down the aisle. With every step, the flickering lights overhead seemed to debate whether they had enough energy to stay lit.
Still, the missing case tugged at me. It was a subtle pull low in my chest, equal parts curiosity and dread.
I ran my finger along a row of cabinets, scanning the gleaming labels—121, 122, 123.
The hum in the air deepened, faintly musical, like carolers in the distance.
The blanket drooped off my shoulder, and I tugged it close, telling myself the sounds were just the building settling, and not a motley crew of dead carolers haunting the basement.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I yelped.
The sound echoed off the cabinets, and my heart thumped against my ribs as I fumbled for the screen. Sage. Of course.
I swiped to answer, and her cheerful face flickered into view, haloed in pixelated light. Beside her, a man in a knit sweater, with his arm draped over her shoulder, gave me a wave.
“Hey, Val.”
“Hi, Leo.” I returned a mock salute. “How’s married life? Please tell me you’re planning to send me free lift tickets this season.”
He grinned. “You know you’re always welcome at the ski lodge. But I may have to put you to work. The assistant I hired after you just retired, and now I’m fielding interviews.”
I leaned a hip against a cabinet. “I might apply. I’m a wizard with a spreadsheet, no magic needed. Which is good, because my résumé lacks a certain… shall we say, enchantment these days.”
Sage scrunched her nose, her voice breaking up over the tricky cell service in the basement.
“Val? Why do you look like you’re standing inside a horror movie?”
My gaze roamed the shadowy aisle. “Oh, that. I went into the agency's basement alone, something you should never do. It’s horror movie 101, and clearly I’m not suited to be the Final Girl.”
Leo laughed, leaning into the camera. “I hope you brought a hockey stick.”
I shook my head. “No, the killer brings the hockey stick. All I have is this cozy fleece. I’ll just drape it over the killer and run back to the elevator.”
Sage shook her head, her long curls bouncing.
“You’re not making it to the sequel.” Then she sighed, pouting into the camera.
“I still can’t believe you finally moved east, and I relocated back home to Coldspell.
” She lowered her voice like we were sharing a secret.
“How’s everything with your villainous boss-slash-husband?
Should I conjure a coastal blizzard and force him to walk home in the snow, uphill, both ways? ”
“He's not that villainous. He shoveled the curb outside the agency the other day when someone slipped. Executives don't usually do that,” I said automatically, then winced. Since when did I defend Grant Delaney's honor?
Sage looked at me like I'd grown antlers.
“Anyway, we bored each other with the most brutal small talk in the elevator this morning. It's our favorite game—seeing who can care the least. I think he's winning."
I kicked off my heels and flexed my feet, trying to ignore the odd sting in my chest that said maybe I didn't want him to be so good at not caring.
"So yeah, I might not survive long enough to tell Santa what I really want this year: a magical annulment. Do you think the man in the red suit has a high-powered divorce lawyer on retainer?”
Leo chuckled. “I think asking for a train set is more his speed.”
“Pity.”
The picture froze, then resumed with a flicker.
“Cell service down there is awful,” Sage said. “Seriously, why are you in the archive? Don’t we have interns to go down into the spooky underbelly of the agency?”
“I’m choosing my first cold case,” I said, moving between the rows. “I let fate pick, and the universe gave me Case One-twenty-eight, except it doesn’t exist in the log.”
“Wait. What?”
“Yeah, it’s strange.”
The call stuttered again; Sage’s voice came in fragments, but I didn’t hear anything as my gaze locked on a narrow drawer wedged between two rusted cabinets. Its label glimmered faintly: Case 128 – Silverpine Inn, Level Five Haunting.
My stomach flipped. Oh, fate, you’re a sneaky witch. Of course, there’d be ghosts.
“Found it,” I said, pulling open the drawer and curling my fingers around a thick folder.
I cracked open the file. A swirl of mint and old parchment rose from the pages. “Okay,” I said, skimming the header. “Silverpine Inn, sounds cozy.”
Sage leaned closer to the camera, her eyes narrowing. “Silverpine? That’s case 128?”
“You know it?” I flipped through the report, pages rustling. “Looks like it started as a routine case, a single spirit haunting a historic inn, wreaking havoc on the guests. Every December, it would reawaken, and then disappear again at midnight on Christmas Eve.”
“Sounds ominous to me,” Leo said.
Sage nodded. “It is. If I remember the rumors, early agents kept missing the deadline. One ran screaming through the snow, and another claimed nightmares for weeks. Eventually, it got a reputation for chewing up agents and spitting them out.”
“Comforting,” I muttered, turning another page. “Ah, look. They even kept a list of the casualties.”
Sage snarled. “Val…”
“I mean, terrorized agents,” I corrected. “There were no actual deaths beyond their extinguished holiday spirit.”
Sage rolled her eyes; the call freezing at that exact moment. I smirked and kept reading, my heart speeding up the further I went.
A few years after the failed attempts, the Agency made it worse by offering a prize. They dangled an enchanted key that can fix any magical mistake.
I glanced up, jaw dropping as the words flashed like neon lights in my mind.
Sage unfroze. “You read about the key, didn’t you?”
“It’s real?”
“Real enough to cause trouble. That year…” She rubbed an eyebrow, trying to remember.
I filled in the details, flipping to the last page. “It looks like an agent slipped on the stairs running from a poltergeist prank. Broken leg, moderate concussion with a touch of amnesia. She spent a few days in the hospital. There are some notes from Legal. They buried the whole thing.”
“No one’s touched that case in years,” Sage said.
“Until now.”
“Val,” Sage said, voice softening. “You’re terrified of ghosts.”
“I know, and it’s your fault. Sometimes, I still sleep with the light on.”
“Then don’t do this. The case could be dangerous.”
“I agree,” Leo added. “Don’t go looking for trouble. Stick to something easy.”
“It’s not that simple. The key could solve my Grant problem. I know how to be careful.”
Sage cocked her head. “Last year you fell into a hole chasing a magical waterfall.”
I waved a hand. “Unrelated.”
The call glitched again, her next words stuttering as she argued with Leo.
I traced the folder’s edge, feeling the faint hum of magic under my fingertips.
Everyone else tried to banish the ghost. Maybe it doesn’t want to be banished.
Maybe it wants something else. With or without my magic, I always excelled at finding the heart of things.
“The key’s still an active reward,” I said when Sage and Leo became clear again.
She threw up her hands. “You’re going for it, aren’t you? You think you’ll get the key, and then poof, no more mystical marriage trap.”
“Maybe I’ll get my magic back,” I murmured.
“Be careful, Valerie,” Leo said.
The call froze on their resigned expressions before cutting out completely. I tucked the folder under my arm and slipped into my shoes before boarding the elevator back to my office.
I slumped into my chair and stared out the window at the cityscape. The sun peeked between the gray clouds like a hopeful beacon. A sign for a Sunbelt agent, if I ever saw one.
The folder sat in my lap, the details inside making the tiniest spark of hope catch in my chest. I could outwit a troublesome spirit.
I was practically battle-hardened after years of dealing with Grant.
Okay, there was the whole fear factor, and the tiny detail that every other agent had failed, and one had landed in the hospital.
But I didn’t have the luxury of failure.
I wouldn’t last another year at the agency without my power.
I glanced at my computer, the company screensaver sliding through photos just as the image of Grant and me materialized, his arm wrapped around my waist beneath the luau arch.
My heart squeezed. Memories of that trip still left me off-balance. There’d been moments between our usual hostility that had bled into something deeper. Moments I kept replaying against my better judgment.
I still thought about that almost-kiss on the beach. Worse, I missed that fleeting spark when his magic had poured into me during the rainstorm. It had been warmth and something dangerously close to intimacy. He'd said I always reminded him that we were enemies, but we hadn't been that day.
I’d never admit it out loud, but sometimes I wished we'd kissed. At least then I could've stopped pretending I didn't care, and proved, once and for all, that feeling anything for Grant Delaney was a mistake.
Well played, Universe. I really needed to get that photo deleted and all traces of it erased from the cloud. But more than that, I needed out of my marriage.
This Christmas.
Before I tricked my brain into thinking that one flash of heat in the rain meant it might be worth giving us a try.
The old woman’s voice from the magic shop drifted through my mind. End what’s empty, and your heart will bloom again.
I wasn't much for riddles, but getting rejected by Grant for even attempting to play house, didn't seem like the path to personal growth.
We had to end it, and this case was the answer. The inn was only a few hours’ drive outside the city. I could head up there this weekend.
I drummed my fingers on the file and frowned. I was definitely going to need to make another trip to the magic shop. The old woman might not have crystals to ward off winter weather, but hopefully, she had something to repel ghosts.
I shuddered. The things I do to restore my faith in love. I should really just get a dog.