Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I'm a Monster Detective. There's one Story I'll NEVER forget

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

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My name is Adam. I'm a consulting detective, which is a fancy way of saying people pay me to solve things they're too embarrassed to take to the cops. Missing husbands, dead cats in the mailbox, a smell coming from the neighbor's basement, that kind of thing. I run my office out of what used to be a failed Chinese joint down on Harmon Alley, behind a strip of laundromats and a donut shop that's always out of everything. There's no sign out front. If you don't already know where to look, you probably don't belong here. Inside, there are two desks, one is mine. It's solid oak, old, scarred with burns and knife marks, none of which are for me.

The other belongs to Clive, my assistant, which is a generous term for someone who once tried to microwave a case file. The walls are a disaster, peeling paint, water stains. that look like South America. Newspaper clippings are thumb-tacked into every inch of free space. Old missing posters, crime scene photos, scribbled notes that made sense once, but don't anymore. Even the bathroom's got sticky notes over the toilet tank. One of them says, don't trust the goblin with the orange shoes.

I don't remember who wrote that. I do remember trusting a goblin. with orange shoes. And I have a scar on my back to remind me of it. The kitchens down the hall, or what used to be a kitchen, back when someone thought this place

could pass health inspection. We turned it into a case file library. Boxes stacked to the ceiling. Half of them are full of books. Clive says some are rare occult volumes. I think most are trashy horror novels with the covers ripped off. Either way, they collect

dust the same. You'll find coffee mugs in every room. None of them clean. Some still have liquid in them. Some have life forms. Every once in a while, Clive tries to wash him. He never gets past two before something distracts him. Usually something stupid. Clive's a kid, early 20s. Eyes too wide, voice too loud. He's got this obsession with the occult. thinks everything that goes bump in the night is the start of a real case. He's not wrong often enough to fire him, but he's not right often enough to trust unsupervised. He came here because he couldn't make it into the police academy.

He says it was politics. I say it was his personality. Either way, he's mine now. I let him sit at the desk. I let him answer the phones. Sometimes I even let him talk to clums. Usually once. As for me, well, I've been doing this too long to believe in anything but evidence rent and caffeine

My name's not in the door. My face is not in the papers But if you've got a problem nobody else can figure out or nobody else wants to touch Well, you end up here. It was just another rainy day in Atlanta when the bell above the office door gave its half-hearted jingle I didn't look up right away. Rain tends to bring in more leaks than leads. But then I caught a whiff of perfume that didn't belong to Clive or the mold in the walls. She stepped in like she didn't want to be seen doing it. Black dress, tied at the waist, cut just below the knees.

Expensive. Same for the sunglasses, which she kept on, even though it was foggy enough outside to lose a Buick. Clive was halfway through. pouring some stale coffee into his already stained mug. He stopped, blinking like someone had switched the channel on him. Can I help you? I asked. Not moving from my desk. She hesitated, then took off her glasses.

Her makeup was perfect, but her eyes told the truth. Red around the edges. Puffy. She'd been crying, just not today. Probably every day this week. I heard you handle things, the woman said. Well, that's one way to put in. Please sit, I replied.

She did? Crossed her legs like she'd been taught to do it. Clive hovered by the coffee machine. I gave him a look. He sat down and tried to look useful. My name is Eve Monroe. My husband passed away three months ago. military, Afghanistan.

I was told I might be entitled to speak to someone with, well, with expertise, the woman said. And what? Dead husbands or living problems. She didn't blink. Both. I leaned back in my chair, hands folded over my stomach. Gone? She shifted in her seat.

Well, it started small. Lights flickering. Remote going missing. Things not working like they should. I thought it was just the house. It's old. Probably built before half of Atlanta had running water. But then the lights on the second floor went out and never turned on again.

She hesitated. Eyes locked on the edge of the desk. I think there's something in that house. Something evil. I think it's a demon. I ignored her last sentence and focused on something tangible. Second floor lights, I asked. Her eyes narrowed slightly.

Yes, all of them. Went out last month. But I just paid the electric bill. I called the city. they said it wasn't on their end. Hired an electrician. He said everything looked fine. Like someone had deliberately killed the power up there.

Clive cleared his throat. That's real weird, I read. Eve didn't look at him. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small stack of glossy printouts. I started noticing words. Spray painted. In my house, always overnight, she said, laying the photos out one by one on my desk. I leaned forward.

The photos weren't fakes. They had the washed out look of cheap ink on home paper. Kitchen cabinets, bathroom mirror, hallway door. Out. No. Leave. I kept my face still. Anyone else live with you?

My son does. Jason, 14. I thought maybe he was lashing out, acting up after losing his father. He's been angry. We've been fighting. I accused him, and he cried, said it wasn't him, swore on his father's grave, she said.

She reached into her bag again, and her hands shook when she handed me the last photograph. This was the latest one from just last week. Bedroom wall, white paint, cheap-looking, above the bed, written in crude letters. God is dead. I stared at it. She didn't say anything else. The rain hit the windows harder now. Somewhere behind me, the radiator gave a tired clunk.

She told me the last thing that happened was the stairs. Her son, Jason, had been coming down from the second floor when something shoved him hard enough to send him tumbling. Twelve steps. He landed face first on the tile and screamed loud enough to wake the whole block. She said she thought he was dead. Turned out it was just a broken arm, but the look in her eyes told me it didn't matter.

The real break happened somewhere else. Since then, they hadn't gone back upstairs. Clothes still in drawers, toothbrushes in the cup, beds unmade. She packed a bag that night and took her son to her mother's house a few neighborhoods over. She hadn't set foot in the place since. But she wasn't here to run from it.

She wanted it back. Said the house was the last thing her husband left them. Paid off, good bones, decent yard. She talked about it like someone talking about a dog that had gone mean, something loyal that turned on them. But she wasn't ready to let go. She asked us to take the case. She didn't cry, didn't beg.

But there was something in her voice that said, if we said no, she'd be back at the front door of that house by nightfall with her son in tow. I told her we'd take it. I asked a few more questions, about Jason mostly. His school, friends, behavior. She answered all of them without blinking. Said he was a good kid. Smart?

Sensitive. Hadn't been quite right since the funeral. When I asked who sold them the house, she went quiet for the first time, said her husband bought it in a foreclosure auction, didn't know who'd live there before. We went back and forth, until I was sure I'd gotten all I could from her to start the case.

She was getting ready to leave when I saw it. A small silver cross hanging from a chain, clutched tight in her gloved hand. I hadn't noticed it before. Maybe she kept it hidden until now. As she stood, I caught her eyes again. The Lord is near to the broken heart in, huh? My grandfather used to always say that. She didn't reply, but I saw her eyes missed over with tears. She nodded And smiled in that way People do when they're trying not to cry

Then turned and walked out the door Before anything else could crack open The bell jingled behind her as she left Clive watched her go Then turned to me with his eyebrows Already halfway up his forehead I didn't think you were to babble verse tap He sent

I went back to the desk cleared the photos into a pile and reach for the nearest mug. I'm not. Then why say it? He asked. I paused. Well, sometimes part of the job is given someone

comfort in a way they can understand, especially when their life stops making sense. Clive leaned back in his chair. He didn't argue. just nodded slowly like he understood, even if he didn't quite agree. Before we stepped foot near that house, I made Clive sit down. He was already halfway to the door, practically bouncing, with his usual mix of curiosity and caffeine.

I could see it in his hands, and the way he kept checking his jacket pocket, like the keys would teleport him straight to the crime scene. That's how he worked. chase first, think later. I reached under my desk and pulled out an old laptop. Dust on the lid, sticker half peeled from the bottom corner. It was a 2012 MacBook, one of those gray, heavy ones that used to be cutting edge before the fan started screaming after ten minutes.

I clicked it open. The screen lit up, slow but steady. Clive stared like I'd pulled. a rabbit out of a hat. This still works? He asked. Better than you do, I replied. He sat reluctantly.

I spun the laptop toward him and waited for the fans to settle. The thing ran like a mule, stubborn, noisy, but dependable. Now the first thing, it's not about chasing a ghost, I began. It's asking the right questions.

You don't walk into a fire before checking where the exits are. Clive muttered something, probably about the thrill of the chase, but he leaned in anyway. To his credit, when he focused, he could dig. I handed him a yellow legal pad and told him to write down everything he found. Names, dates, anything that didn't fit. He started tapping. We already knew the buyer. The husband threw foreclosure.

What we didn't know was the cellar. That was the gap. And gaps are where the good stuff usually hides. It took about 15 minutes before Clive sat straight up. I got something. I looked over his shoulder. The listing from the auction site was still cashed. Previous owner.

Diana Mercer. The name didn't mean anything to me, but Clive was already down a rabbit hole. Wasn't long before he started pulling up old newspaper scans, the kind no one looks at unless they're really trying. Not archived anywhere official, just second-rayed blogs, digitized pages from a neighborhood print, probably shut down years ago. The first thing that came up was the address. It was mentioned in a half-dozen small articles about neighborhood disturbances, all of them vague. People claiming pets had gone missing.

Children, talking about a woman in the upstairs window when no one was home. Locals called it the witch house. Atlanta's own version of urban legend nonsense. But the more we read, the less it sounded like a campfire story. The articles stopped suddenly. all within the same year, 10 years ago. That's when the reports of the owner's death started showing up. It wasn't front-page stuff, but it was too strange to ignore.

According to one article, neighbors had reported a foul smell coming from the house. Not gas, not mold. Something wars. The kind of smell that creeps under your door frame and settles in your clothes. When no one answered the door, police came to check on her. What they found made the news, and not just locally. She'd been dead in the bathtub. That part wasn't unusual.

What was unusual was everything else. The time of death was very specific. 307 p.m. Broad daylight. The body had been drawn. Drain'd of all blood. Not spilled. Not pooled. Drained.

Every vein collapsed. Every artery flattened. Like the body had been vacuum sealed from the inside. The autopsy confirmed it. No blood anywhere in the body. Not even trace amounts. And her left hand was gone. not severed at the wrist, not injured, just missing, completely.

The skin around where the hand should have been wasn't torn or mingled. It was smooth, closed somehow, like it'd never been there at all. But the papers confirmed she had been born with all limbs intact. Police search the house. The drains, the yard. No hand. They never found it. There wasn't much follow-up after that.

No suspects, no motive. No one close to her. No next of kin. The case dried up. The house was emptied, boarded up, and forgotten until it reappeared at a foreclosure auction three years later. By then no one remembered the name. Just the stories.

And boy, there were many. Family after family came to live in that house. And family after family left. No one stayed long. Clive was ready to jump out of his chair, practically buzzing. That's it, right? The witch house? The blood, the hand.

That that explained everything. I didn't answer right away. I closed the laptop and pushed it aside. The hum of the fan slowed down and stopped. It explains something. Not everything, I replied. He frowned, like I'd just taken the wind out of his sails. Oh, come on.

A woman tied to the occult dies under freaky circumstances, and now ten years later, weird things start happening, in the same house. You really think that's coincidence? No, but this is just the first piece of the puzzle. Don't start framing the picture before we've dumped out the whole box, all right? Clive sat down again, slower this time. So, what do you think we're dealing with?

I reached from my coat and stood. Not a demon. He looks surprised. But Miss Monroe. Yes, yes, she thinks it's a demon. That's understandable. She's scared. Her son's hurt.

And nothing about her life makes sense right now. But what we're looking at is something else. This Diana woman, she wasn't possessed. She was involved. Clive blinked. Involved. how? Witches.

Not the broomstick kind. Just people. People who borrow power from something else. So, wait, wait, how'd that different from a demon? Well, if it were a demon, I began.

We'd be calling the Vatican. So you better hope it's not. He didn't have a response for that. Just grabbed his coat still thinking. I locked the laptop, pocketed my notebook, and headed for the door.

All right, come on. Time to see what's left of the witch house. The Monroe House looked worse in daylight. Paint stripped from the siding, like it given up holding on, porch sagging under its own weight, and no curtains in the windows. Just the blank stare of a house

nobody lived in anymore. When we stepped inside, the smell hit first. Wax and mothballs. The kind of stale that sticks to the back of your throat. There was melted candle wax everywhere, on shells, table corners, dripping down under the floors. Dozens of candles sat half-burned on every flat surface. Big ones, cheap,

tea lines, thick ones in jars. I counted five on the kitchen counter alone. That lined up. Mrs. Monroe said the electricity upstairs cut out weeks ago. If the breakers didn't fix it and the city wasn't at fault, then they proudly gave up and lit candles to see in the dark. Looking around now, it was clear they'd been lighting everything by hand for a while. Clive wandered down the hall and stopped in front of a grandfather clock. The big kind, old-fashioned, dusty, the hands were stuck. He called me over and pointed to the face, 307. He didn't say anything, just walked into the kitchen and looked up at the wall clock.

That one was frozen too. Same time, 307, dead center. That was when I said it aloud. Same time Mercer died. That was the official time of death from the coroner's report. Ten years ago, middle of the afternoon, found drained in her tub. Every clock in this house was still stuck on the exact minute she died. We moved from room to run.

room. Most looked half abandoned, like someone started packing and gave up halfway. Boxes opened, but never filled. A suitcase left on the hallway floor, zipper crooked. A child's toy train left mid-set-up in the living room. One of the plastic tracks had snapped. In the master bedroom, folded clothes were still sitting in a basket like someone meant to put him away and never did. A blanket was balled up on the carpet, next to the wall, probably where someone tried to sleep without going upstairs. There wasn't much to the first floor of the house, so we decided to head upstairs. The stairs groaned under our weight as we climbed. The air on the second floor was heavier, carrying the faint smell of dust and wax.

Most of the doors were open, but the one at the end of the hall, was shut, the master bedroom. I pushed it open, and the first thing I saw was the writing. Black spray paint, wide strokes across the wall above the bed. God is dead. The letters bled into the drywall, uneven, harsh, but the words were unmistakable. Clive pulled something from his jacket pocket a folded sheet of paper. He spread it open and held it up to the wall. The photo Mrs. Monroe had shown us. The same angle, the same words.

The match was perfect, right down to the way the paint ran in a thick drip under the D. He stood there for a long time, eyes flicking between the photo and the wall. Then he spoke. The dead edge from a philosopher. I remember it from a class in college. Can't remember his name.

So why here? Why that quote? Why would whatever's haunting this place choose those words? He asked. I shrugged. Fear, maybe. Fear's fuel. Always has been.

Clive lowered the photo and folded it again, slipping it back into his pocket. I could see the gears turning behind his eyes, more questions forming, but I didn't give him the chance. I stepped deeper into the room. The carpet was flattened where the bed had been dragged aside. A dresser leaned crooked against the wall, one drawer half open, shirts spilling out like someone left in a rush. I ran my hand along the nightstand. A thin layer of dust clung to my fingers. Near the far wall, the floorboards looked off, not warped, just scuffed in a way that didn't match the rest of the room, scrapes along the grain, faint but fresh, the kind left when

something heavy gets dragged across the floor. I crouched down and ran a hand along the baseboard. Then I felt a draft that I chalked up to nothing. And that's when I saw it. A seam. Not quite a crack, but enough of a line to break the flow of the wall. I looked up and traced it with my eyes. From the floor all the way to the ceiling, just behind a leaning dresser.

Clive, I said. He turned from the corner, still holding the folded photo. I nodded at the wall. He came over and helped me shift the dresser. It groaned against the floor, but slid easier than I expected. Behind it, the wallpaper was different. It was older and layered, two patterns, one on top of the other. The outer sheet peeled at the corner.

I grabbed it and pulled. It came off in long strips, revealing a narrow wooden door. door, barely wider than a crawl space hatch. No knob. Just a rusted latch holding it shut. I didn't like how low it was. It wasn't built with a house. It was added later after someone decided they needed it.

Clive leaned in. Think it's a closet? Not that kind. Keep your flashlight on, I said. We undid the latch and opened the door. It creaked stiffly, hinges straining against the ears. The smell changed immediately. Old wax, something else.

Faint iron. The flashlight beam cut through the dark. Inside was a small, cramped room. Barely big enough to stand in. The walls were scorched near the top, blackened from candle smoke. Melted wax pulled in rings on the floor. Burn marks traced symbols I didn't recognize. And in the center, a stain.

Dark, brownish-red, uneven. It looked like someone had once been lying there. Arms spread. Body limp. Clive stepped in behind me. Took one look at the stain and let out a low whistle. Well, looks like we just found Diana's secret occult room. I nodded once.

Yeah, we did. Clive stayed in the doorway. documenting the ritual room with quiet focus. He circled the wax symbols, moving carefully, lifting his phone for pictures and taking his time with every detail. I left him to it and stepped back into the bedroom. Something kept nagging at me. I couldn't put my finger on it until I stopped moving.

The draft again. It brushed against my ankle once more. steady and cold coming up from the floor. That shouldn't have been happening in a house sealed up this tide. I crouched down and scanned the baseboards. Just beneath the wall, the floor showed signs of recent scraping. Narrow lines curved against the wood, faint, but there, something heavy had been dragged across this floor.

I followed the marks to the hallway and then down the stairs. The trail carried through the living room and out the back door. The breeze was stronger outside, and the air carried that same cold I'd felt before. It led me to the side of the house where a crawl space hatch sat half hidden behind dry weeds and debris. The hatch wasn't locked, but I'd rust on it. but had been opened recently. I knelt down and shined my flashlight inside. Most of what I saw was ordinary, loose dirt, forgotten boards,

some old insulation sagging between the beams. But something deeper in caught the light. It was pale and shaped like it didn't belong. I swore under my breath, rolled up my sleeves. Took off my coat and tie and slid inside. The crawl space had a low ceiling, just enough to move without my back hitting the beams. The ground was dry and uneven. As I moved forward, a few rats scurried past and vanished into the dark.

I kept going without stopping. The further I crawled, the worse the smell became. It made me think of old. Meat left too long in the sun, the kind of smell that sticks in the inside of your nose. It wasn't overwhelming, but it had settled into the space. When I reached the far end, I found what I'd seen from the entrance. A human hand rested on the dirt. The skin was pale and dry, the nails neatly trimmed.

A ruby ring sat on the middle finger, clean and intact. The hand wasn't decomposed, but it gave off the heavy smell of rot. The ground around it was marked. Wax had been poured in circles, some lines still clear, others cracked with age. Small bones had been placed carefully inside the patterns, not skin. scattered, but arranged with purpose. Birds, maybe rodents. Some had been picked clean. Others still held bits of fur. A small altar stood just behind the hand. Stones were stacked with care, blackened from candle burn. Dried blood had soaked into the top layer. The source was clear. A chicken. Later Across the top, with its neck slid open. The body was limp and stiff, freshly placed.

Wedged into the crevices of the stone were Polaroids. Most of them showed ritual scenes. Dim rooms. Open books. Raised hands. Some faces were blurred. One of them wasn't. Diana Mercer said,

stared back at me from the center of the group. Her face was all smiles like she was having the time of her life. The moment settled in. This was not an overlooked detail from the original police investigation. It was not an ordinary burial either. The hand had been left here,

either by Diana or one of her occult followers. It had been, been preserved, sat in the center of an ongoing ritual space. The witch hadn't just died in that house. Like many of her kind to do, she had left a part of herself behind. This was the key. It explained the clocks, the messages, the fear, the reason the house still felt active. It also explained the accidents. witches are known for staying tied to one place

that shows up in old stories like Hansel and Gretel and in real cases too like the Rhode Island farmhouse back in 1907 the pattern's always the same a witch makes a deal with something beyond this world usually a demon

and gains power that power doesn't belong to them It's borrowed. And even after they die, the connection sometimes stays open. The house, the land, the objects. They hold onto it. What I found under the Monroe House made it clear. Diana Mercer never planned to let go of this place.

Even after her death. I turned and began crawling back. Flashlight steady. The answer had been beneath our feet the whole time, literally. Now I knew how to end it. We had to cleanse the house. It was time to call the priest. It was just afternoon when we came back to the Monroe House.

The clouds hadn't moved all morning, and the street outside was as quiet as I'd ever seen it. The house looked the same from the outside, but I knew what was under it now. I knew what had to be done. Clive and I didn't come alone this time. I'd called in someone I trusted Father Daniel. He was an old friend of mine.

And he wasn't the type to give long sermons, just quiet words and steady hands. He brought a small bag with him, filled with holy water, a worn crucifix, and a Bible held together with tape. He didn't ask too many questions. He never did when I called. I laid out the plan on the porch before we went in. Each of us would take one space. We needed to cut this thing off from every angle. Father Daniel would walk through the house with prayer and water,

blessing the thresholds and corners. Clive would head back up to the hidden ritual room to scrub out the wax circles and burn whatever Diana had left behind. As for me, I was going under. The hand needed to be buried and sealed. Everyone nodded, and then we went in. Father Daniel started in the living room,

murmuring words I'd heard him say a thousand times before, under different circumstances. I watched him for a second, before heading out the back and around the house to the crawl space. The hatch creaked open as I pulled it loose. The cold draft hit again. I dropped my knees, flashlight in one hand, small wooden box in the other. Inside the box was salt, packed tight.

I crawled back through the same tunnel, the dirt dry beneath my palms. The rats were gone this time. The crawl felt longer now. Like the house knew I was here to end something. I reached the same spot, the altar, the bones, the wax, all exactly how I left him. I moved the stones aside and cleared a shallow hole in the dirt. The wax cracked under my hands, flaking apart like old paint. Then I took Diana's severed hand and placed it in the box, covering it under a thick

thick layer of salt after wrapping it in linen. I filled the hole and the rest of the spiritual space with even more salt, cleansing the area clean. I was done when there wasn't a trace of wax or bones left. I sat back, hands resting on my knees, and looked at the ground one last time. That's enough now, I said. The house responded. as if it heard me. It started as a low rumble beneath me. The crawl space shook hard, knocking dust loose from the beams above. The ground trembled.

I pressed my hands to the dirt and waited. Then, with a sharp crack, the world jolted. Wood groaned all around me. And the sound of glass. shattering, tore through the air above, and then it stopped. Silence followed. Total stillness. I didn't move until it was over.

When I was sure nothing else was coming. I turned around and crawled back the way I came. My flashlight beam trembled slightly, dust still drifting through the crawl space. At the entrance, I climbed out, carrying the box. with me. The wind outside had picked up just enough to rustle the trees. From where I stood, I could see the windows. Every single one had shattered outward. Jagged glass framed the edges, and shards littered the porch and sidewalk. It looked like the house had exhaled all at once. I stepped through the front door. The living room was covered in broken glass. Father Daniel stood in the very middle of it,

still holding his old Bible. A wet streak ran down one wall where the holy water had splashed. He looked at me and gave a short nod. Upstairs, Clive came down slowly, holding his cheek. A thin cut ran just under his eye. Fresh, but not deep. It would scar, though. He looked around, eyes wide, and then locked eyes with me. Is it over? I nodded.

It was over. It'd been a few days since we finished the job. The Monroe House was quiet now. No more flickering lights. No more wall. words on the wall. The second floor still needed repairs, and the windows had all been boarded up after the glass blew out. But the house itself was clean. For the first time in a long while, it was just a house again. Mrs. Monroe called and asked if she could stop by the office. I told

her she was welcome any time. She arrived in the same black dress she wore the first time, but it looked different now. She stood straighter. Her face looked rested. No makeup today. No sunglasses. Her eyes were tired, but they were clear. Clive greeted her at the door.

She sat across from me, folding her hands tightly in her lap. And I told her everything. I explained that the house wasn't haunted in the way people imagine. Diana Mercer, the woman who lived there before, had been a practicing occultist. She wasn't born with power. She made a deal with something. That kind of deal always leaves a trace. Before she died, she left behind more than a memory.

She left behind a part of herself. Her hand hidden under the house. Preserved and placed at the center of an altar. That hand acted like a cord tying her to the house. As long as it remained, her influence stayed. The Monroe family was not imagining it. The house really had turned against them. Clive filled in the rest.

He told her about the ritual room upstairs, the symbols, the wax circles, and the bones. He explained how he cleansed each space. We didn't leave anything behind. Mrs. Monroe stared down at her lap while we spoke. She didn't interrupt. When I finished, she looked up with eyes of glassy from held back tears. She didn't cry, but her voice caught when she thanked us. She stood and reached into her purse, pulling out a thick envelope.

She placed it on the desk between us. Then she left, back into the alley, into the city that hadn't stopped moving since the case began. Clive leaned against his desk and watched her go. He waited until the door clicked shut, then turned toward me. You said something earlier about what you found under the house. I nodded. I already knew what was coming.

You said it was a chicken. Dead dead. fresh. I nodded. He crossed his arms and looked at the floor. But Diana's been dead for ten years. So she couldn't have done that. That means someone else was feeding the ritual.

Keeping it going. He let that settle for a second. Exactly, I replied. It wasn't an accident. That chicken. had been laid there as an offering. Not random. Someone else knew about the ritual

and had been trying to keep it alive. Whether they were part of Diana's group or found her notes later, I couldn't say. But the meaning was clear. Someone had continued her work. Without that sacrifice, the spell would have died years ago. Clive didn't like that.

I could see it on his face. So they're still out there, he asked. Maybe. There doesn't matter. We broke the connection. Without the hand, without the altar, there's nothing left to feed. Whoever they were, they don't have power anymore. He nodded slowly, not happy, but understanding.

Outside, the rain in Atlanta hadn't stopped. It pattered against the office windows as Clive poured another mug of whatever passed for coffee that day. The envelope from Mrs. Monroe sat in the desk drawer unopened. Later, as we looked back and reviewed, we dubbed this the Monroe Witch Case. You see, not every job ends with all the answers. Some just end, but the house was quiet now, and the family was safe. I listened to the rain outside and stared out the window. Sooner or later, the next person would walk through our door with a story they couldn't explain,

and we'd be ready.