Page 76 of The Magic We Made

“Sacrifice?”Dina looks horrified. “Who would do such a thing?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Angie pauses for a sip of wine before barreling on. “I did ask her, later, after Jackie had to step out of the room to take a call. All Meg would tell me is that someone named Haley ordered all of them to cut their hair—”

I knew it. It was goddamned Haley all along.

“That’s enough,” Mrs. Giovanni says, rising from her seat at the head of the table. “Not in front of thebambini.Girls, help Nonna clear the table.”

Both her grandchildren groan.

“Nonna, I want to hear about the missing girl!” Bianca wails.

But a single look from Mama Giovanni silences her. Both girls meekly follow their grandmother back to the kitchen, each holding a modest stack of dirty dishes.

“It’s not really that unheard of,” Dina says as soon as the kids and Frankie’s mother are out of earshot. “There are many spells that require human hair as an ingredient. Personal artifacts like hair contain some of the strongest magic of all. That’s why it’s so often used for protection and love spells—”

“I don’t think this was any love spell,” Angie says with a snort. “That girl seemed scared. Jackie told me not to ask her any questions that weren’t beauty related because it might trigger her into another panic attack, and even jeopardize their case—”

“Whatcase?” Mark demands. “Did somebody do something to them? I mean, besides make them cut their hair?”

“I don’t know.” Angie’s beginning to lose some of her smugness. “But whoever cut her hairshouldbe arrested. Her edges were the most uneven I’ve seen since my beauty school days. I don’t know what they used to cut it, but an axe probably would have done a better job. I had no choice but to give her an asymmetrical pixie cut, which isn’t really right for the shape of—”

“But how did she seememotionally?” Frankie interrupts. “Aside from the haircut.”

Angie shrugs. “She seemed fine to me. She’s hooked up to a lot of IVs and has poison ivy and some horrible bug bites, but I overheard a nurse say that the hospital is letting her go home tomorrow. That’s why Meg asked for her hair to be shaped. She said she didn’t want her little brother seeing her with such an ugly cut.”

Dina raises her eyebrows as she looks at Frankie. “Well, that’s a good sign, right, Frankie? The fact that she wants to go home?”

“Possibly.” Frankie looks thoughtful. “But did she say anything about where she’s been or what she’s been doing?”

Angie’s eyebrows pucker as she tries to remember.

“You know, it’s funny,” she says. “When I told her I was sorry that I hadn’t brought any nail files or polish or even hand cream, Meg looked down at her nails and said that she knew how bad they were, and she’d be getting a manicure from her regular stylist as soon as she got back to New Jersey. She was feeling well enough to joke a little, and said she knew it looked likeshe’d been digging holes with her bare hands, and that’s because she had been—”

“Holes?”exclaims Angie’s husband, Troy.

I glance across the table. Troy’s jaw is slack. He looks like someone who just found a fly—or worse—in his beer.

“She said she’d been diggingholes?” he cries.

“Yes.” Angie seems a little annoyed that her husband is interrupting her story. “That’s what she said. When I asked why, all she’d say was that they’d been looking for some old bone—”

Now Dina is the one to react. “Bone?” She sounds alarmed. “What kind of bone?”

“How should I know?” Angie looks even more annoyed. “I had my hands full trying to get her layers right. I couldn’t be bothered asking about some old witch’s bone—”

“Did she saywitch’s bone?” Dina has pulled out her phone and is checking something. “Were those her exact words, witch’s bone?”

“I guess—”

“Dammit!” Troy slaps his hand down on the table and stands up. Naturally, everyone looks at him.

“Someone’s been digging holes all over Center Island,” he says. “Itoldyou guys, and you tried to say it was treasure hunters, or tweakers, or goddamned fairies, or some shit. But there are holes all around Satan’s Seat—”

“Center Island?” Now Frankie is looking at me, wide-eyed. “If Meg took a boat from there, even one without an engine, the current would take it directly to your dock.”

I’m already climbing from my chair. “Right. Well, this has been lovely, but I need to go. Please tell Mrs. Giovanni how much I enjoyed the meal—”

“Hold on.” Troy is on my heels. “You think those missing girls have been out there on Center Island this whole time? Because that’s impossible. We’ve been patrolling out there. Someone would have seen them.”