Wicked Charms Read Online Free

and carted him off.”
    Diesel unlocked my car and opened the driver’s side door for me. “I have stuff to do,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
    —
    My house looks like it was sprinkled out with a lot of other houses from the big house saltshaker sometime in the 1700s. The neighborhood is a mix of small houses built by cod fishermen, shoemakers, carpenters, and mariners, and a few larger houses that were owned by merchants and ship captains. Most of the houses still have a wooden sculpture of a golden cod above their doorways, a symbol of good luck. My golden cod was getting a little worn around the fins, and I’d had “paint your fish” in my mental to-do list for a while.
    I was later getting home than usual, and Cat was waiting at the door. I snatched my mail from the mailbox, said hello to Cat, and went straight to the kitchen. I poured some kitty crunchies into Cat’s bowl, adding a slice of cantaloupe as apology for his delayed dinner. I browsed through my mail while Cat ate.

    Bills, junk mail, more junk mail…Uh-oh. Letter from a publisher. A while back I’d had an idea for a cookbook, Hot Guys Cooking for Hungry Women. I packaged up my ideas and recipes, and my manuscript was making the rounds of New York agents and publishers. Unfortunately, no one wanted it, and I’d come to dread opening the letters that were inevitably rejections.
    “What do you think, Cat?” I asked. “Should I open it? Do you have a good feeling about this one?”
    Cat was sinking his fangs into the cantaloupe and didn’t appear to care a lot about the letter.
    “Okay,” I said to Cat. “Wish me luck.”
    I tore the envelope open and read the letter. Rejection. Crap!
    “It’s a great idea,” I said to Cat. “And the recipes are perfect. I’ve kitchen-tested them. I don’t know why no one wants to buy my book.”
    I went into my small living room and turned the television on. I flipped through channels until I came to the Food Network. I watched a half hour of cooking and moved on to Property Brothers on HGTV. They cooked in an entirely different way.

    Cat had followed me into the living room and was curled up on the couch next to me.
    “This is what I need,” I said to Cat. “I need the Property Brothers. They work cheap, they always deliver on time, and they’re cute.”
    I heard the front door open, and Cat gave a low growl. His ears rotated in the direction of the door, and he listened for a moment. He settled back with his nose tucked under a paw when Diesel and Carl walked into the room.
    Carl jumped off Diesel’s shoulder, scuttled over to Cat, and sniffed him. Cat opened his one working eye, and Carl shrank back and wrapped his arms around Diesel’s leg. No one messes with Cat.
    “Well?” I said to Diesel.
    Diesel slouched onto the couch next to me, so that I was bookended between Cat and Diesel.
    “I checked out the cage, and I went over the entire floor of the exhibit room,” Diesel said. “The coin wasn’t there.”
    “And the dead guy?”
    “I took a look at him, too. He was taken to the morgue and stored for an autopsy. No coin on the dead guy.”
    “What about Wulf?”
    “I talked to Wulf. He hasn’t got it.”
    “There were two EMTs who handled the corpse. And probably someone checked him into the morgue.”
    “And there was Dr. Death,” Diesel said.
    “Nergal?”

    “Yeah, my money’s on Nergal.”
    “I thought you liked him. You told me I should date him.”
    “He would have gone over the body and collected evidence before they closed the bag. He’s the logical person to have found the coin.”
    “Did you go through his office?”
    “Yeah, and the coin wasn’t there,” Diesel said. “It also wasn’t listed in the evidence log.”
    The Property Brothers signed off, and I stood and stretched. “Bedtime,” I said. “I need to be at the bakery early tomorrow.”
    “No problem,” Diesel said, taking charge of the remote. “I’ll be up