Though Xylda had loved the concept of easy money to be made online, she’d never adapted to it; and really, she’d been more of a performance artist. He grinned as he remembered Xylda’s appearances in front of the press during the last big murder case she’d worked. She’d enjoyed every minute of the publicity. Most grandsons would have found the old lady a source of acute embarrassment: her bright dyed hair, her flamboyant clothes and makeup, her histrionics. But Manfred had found Xylda a fountain of information and instruction, and they’d adored each other.

For all Xylda’s fraudulent claims, she’d had flashes of the real thing. Manfred hoped she’d never realized that he was much more gifted than she’d ever been. He had a sad suspicion that Xylda had known this, but they’d never done more than refer obliquely to it. Now they never would. He dreamed of her often, and she talked to him in those dreams, but it was more of a monologue than a dialogue.

Maybe she would pop up in one of his séances.

On the whole, he hoped she wouldn’t.

2

A few days later, Bobo Winthrop was thinking about his new tenant when Fiji came into Midnight Pawn. Bobo was sitting in a comfortable chair probably crafted sometime around the turn of the century. It was made of dark, ornately carved wood with faded crimson velvet cushions. He’d been sitting in this chair for a month now, and he would miss it if the owner ever came back to redeem it. Of course, the guy should have taken it down to the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon, but he hadn’t wanted to deal with “fruitcakes,” as he’d so charmingly termed Joe and Chuy. After looking at the chair for twenty-four hours, Bobo had positioned it in front of one of the wooden posts that went from floor to ceiling. He’d put an old table by it. The chair seemed at home in the maze of the pawnshop, and he was not instantly visible from the front door.

“Bobo?” Fiji called. “You here?”

“In my chair,” he said, and she began working her way through the furniture and assorted items that had been left there over the years. Away from the front windows, the pawnshop was dim and dusty, with a lamp left on here and there to guide the visitor.

Bobo was pleased to see Fiji. He liked her freckles and her gentleness and her cooking. It didn’t bother him that Fiji said she was a witch. Everyone in Midnight had a past, and everyone had a freaky side. Some showed it more than others. Backlit by the daylight streaming in the big front window, Fiji picked her way carefully through the decades of accumulated items that filled Midnight Pawn. She smiled when she reached Bobo.