forty

“You must be mistaken,” I said.

Dorian gaped at me, watching as I gripped the phone.

“I’m not, Zoe,” the detective said. “Watch your back, okay?”

“If you’re honestly worried that my dear friend might have killed Logan Magnus,” I said, “shouldn’t I know what I’m up against? You really think Tobias is … what? A serial killer?”

A long sigh came across the phone line. “No. Not a serial killer. A copycat.”

“Of what? I keep up with the news and haven’t seen anything similar for him to copy.” Since Dorian now subscribed to several newspapers from across the world, I read those too. “I haven’t seen anything about people dying from ingesting toxic paint. Or is this one of those things where you need a mathematician to see random patterns—”

“Not a mathematician. A historian. He’s copying crimes that began in the early 1600s.”

Before Tobias and I were born. Oh no … Not before Perenelle was.

“I’ve always been interested in solving crimes,” Detective Vega continued. “In college I double-majored in history and criminal justice. The parts of history that intrigued me most were the cases detectives never managed to solve. I remember one night at the library looking at old newspaper archives—this was before they were digitized to read from a smartphone—and making the connection that in different places and times in Europe, people died from swallowing large quantities of toxic paints. They never had any marks on their bodies from having fought back. Why not? It had to have been incredibly painful to swallow so much noxious paint. If someone wanted to kill themselves, there were plenty of easier ways. I don’t know how it was done … ”

“But you thought they’d all been murdered.”

“Don’t make me regret telling you my theory,” Detective Vega continued. “But I couldn’t in good conscience not. You might be in danger if Tobias Freeman is copying these crimes. I could tell from our conversation that he’s a history buff too. The guys at the station don’t believe me, but there’s something to this. I can feel it. Call me if you see Tobias Freeman again.”

I stood staring at the black lacquered phone before returning the earpiece to its cradle. Was Detective Vega lying to me about Tobias arriving in town two weeks earlier than he’d appeared to? The police lied to people to see what their deception would shake loose. She had to be doing that … Didn’t she?

“Dorian, do you know where Tobias went?”

The gargoyle glared at me, clearly still angry and thinking that Brixton and I had overreacted about his enlisting the help of teenagers to track down the backward alchemy book that had brought him to life. “You did not ask me to keep your friend captive.”

“He’s your friend too.”

“Unless he is a murderer.” Dorian crossed his arms and sniffed. “Then I will rescind my friendship.”

“Have a little faith. There’s got to be a mistake.”

I left the attic and went to Tobias’s room. I didn’t have to knock. The door was wide open. So was the closet. And it was empty. His clothes and his bag were gone.

Brixton and I worked in the garden in silence as I worried about Tobias and Brixton fumed about Dorian. Had Tobias lied to me? I had the strongest impression that the detective believed what she’d told me.

I reminded Brixton how much of a sprawling plant he should trim. The right amount of pruning would cause a plant to thrive, but too much and it would wither and die. In his anger, his snips were overly enthusiastic and he cut back more of the pea shoots than I would have liked, but they were hearty plants, plus it was good for his wellbeing so I let him hack away.

“How could Dorian betray me?” Brixton said finally, echoing my thoughts about Tobias.

“He didn’t mean to. He misjudged the situation. I don’t want you, Ethan, or Veronica anywhere near that book. I’ll have Dorian tell Veronica he found another perfect Christmas gift for me so she should stop searching.”

“Should we ask Max to have someone watch V’s house? I mean, what if someone tries to hurt her?”

As so often these days, I stifled the overwhelming urge to tousle his hair. “She’s not in danger, but I’ll keep an eye on her.”

We worked in the garden in companionable silence for the next hour, stopping as the sun dipped low in the sky. I drove Brixton home with his bike in the back of my truck.

“You don’t have to wait,” he called over his shoulder as he walked his bike up the driveway to the little house.

Of course I’ll wait, I thought to myself. Brixton headed to the garage to put away his bike. Keeping one hand on the handle bar, he knelt to lift the garage door. The sound of rusty hinges squealed as the cracked wooden door swung upward, revealing darkness inside. In the moonlight, I could make out the outlines of the bike falling onto the concrete driveway and heard Brixton cry out as he ran forward.

I jumped out of the car, wincing at the pain in my ankle but pushing forward.

Brixton hadn’t bothered to turn on the light, so I didn’t see what had happened until I was almost upon them. Brixton sat on his knees, cradling his mom in his arms. A trickle of blood ran down the side of Heather’s temple.

She wasn’t moving.