Pain exploded in Gigi’s chest. It was the first confirmation of what she’d known had to have happened to her mother. That didn’t make it any easier to process, though. There was a small part of her that had always been on the lookout for her mother’s beautiful blond hair and kind green eyes. Now even that small thread of hope had been snatched from her.
“Gigi?” Joy asked. “Are you all right?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. That sharp pain that was always present when Gigi thought about that time in her life intensified, making her stomach cramp. It had been the single worst two weeks of her life. Her mother had vanished, and then her best friend had been arrested for her mother’s disappearance. Ultimately, there hadn’t been anything other than circumstantial evidence against Sebastian and he’d been released. But the missing persons case had never been solved.
And now after all these years, not only did she have confirmation that her mother had been abducted, a ghost had also told her that Sebastian had the answers. It didn’t necessarily mean he was guilty, but it likely meant he had information he’d kept from her all these years. That knowledge made her want to scream with frustration.
“Gigi?” Joy prompted again. “You don’t need to talk about this if you don’t want to, but we’re here for anything you need.”
“She’s right,” Grace said while Hope nodded her agreement.
Gigi glanced around at them. Although talking about her mother wasn’t something she ever did, for the first time in over twenty years, she felt the need to purge her soul. “It happened when I was eighteen,” she said, staring at her clasped hands. “It was just me and my mom. My dad took off years earlier. One day, she was at the house, then a few hours later she wasn’t. I never saw her again.” Pain sluiced through Gigi, and it took every ounce of will she had to get out the next words. “She was never found.”
“And Sebastian?” Joy asked.
Gigi gritted her teeth. “He’d come by the house to see me, but I hadn’t gotten home yet. He was the last person to see her alive. The authorities automatically blamed him, but they had no evidence against him.”
“Oh my,” Grace said, her tone hushed. “That’s… just about the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard.” Her friend moved closer and wrapped an arm around Gigi’s shoulders, pulling her in close. “I’m sorry, honey. No one should have to endure that. Not you or Sebastian.”
“Sebastian,” Gigi huffed out. “Right. That’s what I thought too until one of my ghosts told me he has the answers to what happened back then.”
“You can’t be serious?” Hope asked with wide, angry eyes. The wind picked up, tossing her black hair back, making her look like a wild witch, ready to take someone out. “You mean to say he’s had information all this time and kept it from you?”
Gigi shrugged. “I guess so. I don’t know how else to interpret the message. When Skyler and I were in the attic this afternoon, an invisible ghost animated my mother’s wedding dress and wrote me a message in the dust. It said ‘the one from your past has the answers.’ Seems pretty straightforward to me since he’s the only person around from my past.”
“Maybe it’s new information?” Joy asked, though she didn’t sound convinced.
“If it was, why wouldn’t he say something to me? It’s not like he doesn’t know where I live, right? Or that I’ve spent over twenty years wondering what happened to her.” Gigi’s anger was back now, and as far as she was concerned, that was a good thing. It was better to feel righteous indignation than crippling despair. At least her anger would propel her into action instead of making her want to curl up in bed for days on end. And since she had enough money that she didn’t need to work, that was a real possibility.
Hope leaned forward, her expression set into determination. “You need to invite him over and pull the information from him. Maybe have a cocktail party at the house. Have the three of us there. I can try to listen in on his thoughts. Maybe Joy will have another vision. And Grace…” She trailed off, eyeing the third witch in the coven. “Well, she can maybe see if she can suss out which ghost was playing dress-up in the attic.”
Gigi grimaced. “I don’t think I want to talk to him about my mom with a bunch of people over.”
“It won’t be people,” Hope clarified. “It will be us.” She waved a hand around the circle. “And our significant others, of course, so it doesn’t look like a weird ambush.”
And Skyler, Gigi thought. She couldn’t leave him out. If he saw all their cars in her driveway, he’d be wondering why he wasn’t invited. She could do that, right? He already had the CliffsNotes version of what had happened. She’d filled him in after the incident in the attic. She cleared her throat. “So I just call him up and invite him over?”
Hope gave her a strange look. “Uh, yeah. Why not?”
“I don’t want it to seem like a date,” Gigi insisted. There’d recently been a time when she’d entertained the idea of going out with Sebastian. But that idea was long gone, and she didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.
“It’s just a cocktail party, Gigi. Tell him you’re inviting friends over. That’s it,” Hope said.
“I know. It’s just…” Gigi shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll take care of it. Does Friday night work for everyone?”
They all nodded their agreement. Then Hope refilled their wine glasses and said, “Who wants to hear about the mother of the groom who got so drunk on champagne that she threw up on the bride just minutes before she had to walk down the aisle?”
“No!” Grace gasped. “Tell me that didn’t really happen.”
“I wish I could,” Hope said, shaking her head. “The groom’s mother just laughed and said now it was a Kinsington wedding and that according to tradition, the bride would be pregnant within the month. She said all of this while pouring herself another glass of champagne, which she then used for a prewedding toast.” Hope let out a chuckle. “The best part is that the bride later announced that she was already pregnant and that if she ended up with twins, she was blaming her new mother-in-law.”
“But what happened to the dress?” Joy asked, clearly horrified.
“Oh, that.” Hope waved a hand. “Well, I saved the day of course. Turns out club soda really does work as long as you have a stain removal potion to go along with it.”
“You cleaned it?” Grace asked, her blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“It doesn’t, does it?” Hope threw her head back and laughed. “That’s why I charged a pain-in-the-ass fee. The extra funds are just enough to pay for the sex swing I bought a couple weeks ago.”
“Sex swing?” the other three witches all said at the same time.
“What about Lucas’s mother?” Joy asked in a hushed tone.
Lucas was Hope’s fiancé, and his mother lived with them.
“Oh, she loves the swing. She uses it all the time.”
“What?” Grace choked out a laugh. “Now I know you’re messing with us.”