fifty

Heavy rain crashed onto the sides of the Airstream. The familiar clatter of rain outside while I was warm and safe in my trailer was normally a comforting sound, but now it did nothing to alleviate my worry. A dark suspicion was swirling in my mind.

I didn’t have time to think about what it all meant. We pulled into the parking lot of Mina’s medical practice, and a few seconds later Tobias opened the door of the trailer. The rain was now torrential, but when I stepped onto the asphalt, I saw Mina waiting outside under a forest-green awning. With Max. There was a veiled darkness in his eyes. He didn’t let his feelings affect his actions. Ignoring me, he and Mina rushed into the trailer. Max lifted Nicolas from the narrow bed into his arms and carried him inside. Mina helped Perenelle across the lot, following behind them.

“These don’t look like gunshot wounds,” Mina said as Max eased Nicolas onto a gurney. “So I don’t have to report these injuries. Why can’t you take them to a proper ER?”

“It’s a long story,” Tobias said. “But they need your help.”

“Who are these people?” Max asked. He blinked at Nicolas in his torn and bloodied clothes not of this century or even the last one, as if not quite sure whether or not he should believe his eyes.

“I hope,” Perenelle said, “that Zoe thinks of us as her surrogate mother and father.”

“I do,” I said, feeling tears again welling in my eyes.

“I’m not treating them here so you can have a family reunion,” Mina snapped.

“I’ll explain everything,” I said. “After.”

Mina looked as though she was going to protest, but Tobias stepped in.

“I’ve dealt with a lot of injured folks over the years. These two … their injuries aren’t responding to standard care. I know this is the best place for them.”

After a brief hesitation, Mina nodded. “You’re the EMT? Get washed up. I need to know what happened, to best treat them.”

“The back of his head is the most serious injury. Abdomen is superficial. The knife didn’t clip any organs.”

“My husband was both stabbed and bludgeoned,” Perenelle added. “I didn’t see with what. And I was forced to swallow poisonous paints.”

Max gave me a strange look. “Luciana was right … Miss, what exactly happened? Who did this—”

“Not now, Max,” I said. I couldn’t very well have them tell him Edward Kelley was the culprit.

“This is important, Zoe.”

“It can wait,” Mina and I said at the same time.

“Actually,” Max snapped, “it can’t. Detective Vega is missing.”

I stared at Max as Mina shouted, “Leave. Both of you. Now. You can talk elsewhere. I need to focus on my patients.”

“Don’t argue,” Max said, steering me out of the room. “There’s no point when she sounds like that.”

“What do you mean Detective Vega is missing?” I said once we reached the waiting room. I’d been worried when she hadn’t returned Tobias’s call, but hadn’t wanted to read more into it.

A lock of Max’s hair had fallen onto his forehead but he didn’t seem to notice. “The pendant you found is made of multiple pieces of metal. Luciana found a fingerprint on the inside. But … the print was from a guy who died several decades ago, by the name of Eddie O’Kells.”

I gasped. I knew that name.

“Which makes no sense,” Max said, beginning to pace, “because Isabella crafted that damn charm. Theoretically she could have done it when she was a kid, and fingerprint analysis isn’t perfect—”

“Oh no … ” My mind screamed at me. Could the connection really be this simple? A few letters …

“What is it?” Max stopped pacing and cocked his head anxiously.

“Eddie.” My hand shook as I picked up my cell phone and typed a name into a search.

“You know him?”

“What did Detective Vega do with the information?” I asked.

“That’s the thing—what could she do with the fingerprints of a dead man? Nothing that I know of. But she’s MIA. No signs of foul play, so we’re not calling in the cavalry yet. But it’s not like her.”

“They should call in the cavalry,” I said. “I know who killed Logan Magnus. It’s Eddie O’Kells.”

“The guy is long dead, Zoe.”

“No, he’s not. He faked a death certificate.”

“He’d be well over a hundred now.”

“And his real name is Edward Kelley.”

A man as intelligent at Edward Kelley would have known that the best way to keep up an illusion is to make it close to the truth. He’d want to continue to use the same first name: Edward. One of the few facts I knew about the famous Edward Kelley was the alias he most commonly used: Talbot.

“Here in Portland,” I continued, “he goes by a different name. But a related one. Ward. The art dealer married to Logan Magnus’s daughter.”