Page 24 of Air Of Mystery (Witches On The Hill #4)

While I did know about George’s brother, I was still surprised to hear him speaking about it to Charlie. Before I could say anything else, Camilla Midnight-Ames blew into the room like a whirlwind.

“I’m here!” she announced. “Let the paranormal experience interviewing begin!”

I’d give Camilla this: her cheerfully loud arrival totally destroyed any uncomfortable vibes that Estella had left behind.

Camilla walked over and gave me a one-armed hug. “Hey, Skye. I’m so excited to do this!”

I hugged her back. “And we appreciate your cooperation.” Gesturing to the chair I had put in place, I invited her to have a seat, while I took the other chair that was facing her.

Apparently, Camilla had freshened up her hair for the on-camera interview. Her blonde hair now boasted a wider and brighter streak of hot pink. Today, she was rocking a pair of dark jeans, black ankle boots and a pink leather jacket tossed over a white shirt. She was hip, chic and subtly witchy.

I took my seat across from her and Larry brought over a ring light, moving it behind the camera.

“We’ll let you all get to work,” Gabriella said and began shooing the rest of the gang out of the room. “I’ll be back down with Archer in about an hour—after he gets home from school.”

“That’s perfect,” I said. “Thanks, Gabriella.”

“See you later, Skye.” Charlie walked over and dropped a kiss on top my head. “We still good for dinner around six?”

“Looking forward to it,” I told him.

“Me and George are too!” Larry chimed in.

“I prefer my steak medium rare,” George told Charlie.

Charlie paused. “I didn’t tell anyone I was grilling steaks.”

“No, you didn’t,” I said. “I thought you were going to grill some chicken.”

“I had planned to,” Charlie admitted,” but the market had—”

“Steaks on sale, and so you decided to switch it up,” George finished for him.

Charlie did a double take. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

“I hope you have beer,” Larry said. “If you’re going to grill. There has to be beer. Am I right?”

“I do.” Charlie nodded to Larry. Then he said to George, “I also have—”

“A nice bottle of the Trois Amis red that you picked out for Skye,” George interrupted.

Charlie’s eyebrows went way up.

“Which I’m thankful for,” George continued, “because I personally prefer red wine with beef.”

I stood up and moved between them. “Come on, George. That’s enough. Stop hazing my boyfriend.”

George only smiled.

Charlie began to laugh. “Can’t wait to see what other tricks you have up your sleeve tonight during dinner.”

“He’s a pain in the ass, isn’t he?” Larry said to Charlie.

“You wound me.” George gave a dramatic sniff.

Camilla had been watching the entire exchange and now she was starting to chuckle. “Man, you guys are fun! If you ever want another investigator to ride shotgun with you, I’d love to tag along sometime.”

I barely managed to restrain myself from rolling my eyes at my team and smiled at Camilla instead.

“That would be great,” I told her. “But right now if the guys are done messing with each other, I’d like you to tell me about your experiences and what happened the night you found the amethyst parure of Bridgette Ames. ”

***

The interview with Camilla went splendidly. When Archer came down an hour later, he was holding his mother’s hand and looking more than a tad nervous.

Camilla had impulsively volunteered to escort George and Larry to the museum room to give them a private mini tour after she finished her interview. Which was great as it allowed Larry to film the amethysts and ask questions about the other items of note that were being displayed in the museum.

George’s rule of no information about a location was out the window this time. Everyone local knew the story of the missing bride and the lost and then found dowry. But neither he nor Larry knew about Jacques or the newly revealed passage.

Before he’d left on his tour, Larry had switched the camera around so that it faced me, and we’d added another chair for Gabriella to sit beside her son—where they would remain off camera.

As soon as they sat down, Archer pulled a piece of folded paper from his jeans pocket. “Here, Skye,” he said, handing it to me. “I drew this for you, so you would know what Jacques looks like.”

I accepted the paper and unfolded it. Archer had drawn a picture of a boy with a pencil and colored it in with crayon. While it was a child’s drawing, there were a few things noticeable right away.

First, Jacques had been depicted with brown hair. Secondly his pants were short, coming to right below the knee—likely breeches—and they were striped. Thirdly, the drawing of Jacques showed him holding something in his hand.

“What’s he holding?” I asked Archer, being careful not to use his name on camera.

“It’s a scope,” Archer said.

I held the drawing up for the camera to capture. “This is great. And very helpful for our investigation.”

Archer began to smile.

“Can you tell me about the times that you saw Jacques here at the mansion?” I asked him.

“Sure,” Archer said. And then he forgot about the camera and simply talked to me.

I kept the interview brief. As soon as we were finished, I stood up and walked over to the camera. “Archer, you were amazing!”

He smiled. “You think I did okay?”

I went back and gave him a hug. “You were one of the best interviews I’ve ever done.”

“Danielle was mad that she wasn’t going to get to talk to you about the ghosts,” he confided.

That made me grin. “Well, it was important for me to talk to you. Since he showed you the secret passage first.”

“Yeah.” Archer nodded. “And I heard Zoe crying first too. But Danielle said she’d take her back to the wedding, ‘cuz we figured people might be looking for her.”

“I’m sure your parents were very proud of all of you for helping the flower girl who was lost.”

“We are,” Gabriella said. “We’ve put new cameras in that passageway; and the panel that was in the main ballroom has been sealed up—we nailed it shut. So no one, or no child will ever accidentally be able to get stuck inside of there again.”

“So the entrance in Charlie’s office is still accessible?” I asked.

Gabriella nodded. “It is. And the others we’ve found in the family wing are, but we’ve got cameras with motion detectors on them now.”

“That’s smart,” I told her, and while I clicked off my camera, I made a mental note to put an additional video camera in Charlie’s office tomorrow night when we investigated.

While I wasn’t a psychic like George, I had a hunch we’d catch something if we did.