The nice part about her job was that she did sometimes work off-site, so the mayor wouldn’t follow up. Neither would the deputy mayor, as they were teeing off by now. Maybe Rutherford could join them. And nobody else had the right to check up on her, so she could get away with being a little irresponsible today. Leanne headed straight home from the community center, passing through the residents’ gate with card access. Junie’s skill with illusion meant she’d probably pretended to be Leanne to gain entrance earlier. That was the way she operated: convenience before honesty in most regards.

The guard stared so hard that Leanne paused as the gate lever rose. “You probably didn’t even see me leave, did you?”

“I sure didn’t.”

Which meant she was right about Junie. “Watch less court TV, Ernest.”

He shot her a rueful look as she pulled away, making room for the car behind her.

Leanne’s condo was on the fourth floor. The building had an elevator, and she appreciated not having any neighbors above her. The view was nice too; she faced the back of the community, overlooking a man-made pond. Landscaped with carefully shaped topiary and a profusion of flowers, the little lake even had ducks that flocked to it. Leanne had no idea if they had been part of the plan or if they’d moved in on their own. She’d heard the grounds keeper bitching about cleaning up after them, though.

She input the code to let herself in and found her mom chilling at the breakfast bar with a margarita in hand. The kitchen was a mess, as Junie never did anything neatly. “I see you made yourself at home.”

“It’s where the heart is,” Junie said cheerfully.

“And I’m your heart?” She didn’t mean to sound so skeptical.

“Of course you are. You’re my little LeLe Moonbeam.”

Please, no.

For the first time ever, she asked her mother for advice, mostly because Junie was here. “What would you do if a man made you feel grubby as hell just by looking at you? He’s such an awful, arrogant son of a bitch.”

“Find some way to make him sorry,” Junie said promptly. “You could hex him?”

“I don’t want to be that witch. It’s not like he wronged me in the Victorian sense, but he’s such a gross chauvinist. Ugh.”

“If it’s a matter of disrespect, take something that belongs to him. I once hot-wired this asshole’s Toyota, but I magicked myself to look like someone else during the theft, and I only drove it for half an hour because I didn’t want to get arrested. I wouldn’t do well in prison.”