Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1) by A.D. Folmer Page B

someone in our company does seem to be . . . acting up. Given the number of people killed, and the evidence, I don’t think moving our project will be a hard sell to the board of directors. We own that whole tract of land after all. We should be able to relocate without too much of a headache.”
    “How much of that land is covered in chupacabras?” Cecilia yelled out. No one answered.
    “We need to find that out,” Fiona said. “Not using the same method as last time. We don’t want to lose anyone else. What about that dowsing you do, Mr. Windisle?” I flinched.
    “What about it?” She gave me a stern look.
    “You knew that it was a bad place the day you went there. Could you trace the ‘bad’ area?”
    “I could find the bodies of the animals killed there,” I admitted. “But that won’t tell you where the . . . chupacabras are now.” It hurt to call them that, but I can recognize a lost cause when I hear one.
    “Excellent,” Pastor Macready said. “That’ll be a start. How much do you charge?”
    ***
    “You owe me for this,” I complained to Steve later.
    “Me? It was Fiona who threw you under the bus.”
    “It’s your property,” I muttered. “You could have said no.”
    “But I want to know how bad it is too. I’m sure it’ll be safer. Your spirit guide went nuts, right? You should be able to stay well away from the chupacabras. Besides, now you’re getting paid twice for the same job.”
    “And I’ll be backing you up with something heavier than a .22,” Zebulon Akeley said. He was a hunter, and he’d been chosen to cover me while I worked. I just hoped he was better at killing radish monsters than the last guy.
    “Do you think the ordinance was the only problem?” I asked him.
    “Absolutely,” he said. “You wouldn’t expect a tree to die if you shot it, would you? I’m thinking something more explosive will be a good start.”
    “It couldn’t hurt,” I said. “Has any of this made the news yet?”
    “Not yet,” Steve said. “It will though. It’s all over the internet. Unfortunately, the film was high enough quality that most viewers are believing what they’re seeing. I put out a press release, but today is Sunday. If any news outlet is going to pick up the story, they’ll do it tomorrow.”
    That night I got to share a room with Steve again. The house he was renting had been broken into. It could have happened any time since we’d gone to the bar the night before. Whoever had done it had taken the door off the hinges, and Cecilia’s complaints about lost business aside, Towenridge was a town that shut down on Sundays. He’d have to wait until Monday to get his door fixed.
    That morning in the hotel lobby we heard that Cecilia’s store had also been broken into. Cecilia was the one who told us because she was worried about me.
    “They took all of Obadiah’s clothes that you didn’t buy,” she said. “So if you need any more clothes I’m afraid it’s disco fever for you.”
    “Then I’d better hang on to what I’ve got,” I said. “Is there some connection between the mall and Obadiah?”
    “He owned the land before he died,” Steve said. “His estate sold it to us.”
    “His estate?” Cecilia repeated, “You mean his sister-in-law? That settles that. There’s probably something terrible out there, and she either didn’t know or dismissed it as her brother-in-law’s crazy ramblings.”
    “So someone’s going through his old clothes for a hint?” I said.
    “Or,” Cecilia said, “the person who bought the land bought something else at the estate sale that made them want the land, like a diary or a painting, but whatever they expected to find wasn’t there.”
    “Or is surrounded by killer plants that an old man couldn’t possibly have fought off,” Steve said. “So he must have had a way of warding off the chupacabras. Like a talisman, or a magic symbol, or a-”
    “A tunnel?” I suggested. “You said you knew where the tunnels