“You look more like a mime than a burglar,” said Gideon.
It was the next morning. Tempest was dressed all in black, with her long dark hair pulled under a winter cap. She couldn’t find her black gloves, so her hands were covered in white.
“I was going to say ‘goth model,’” Ivy chimed in, “but ‘mime’ works, too.”
The three of them were sitting in Dahlia’s old station wagon in the parking lot of a campground near the river that ran through Forestville. It wasn’t the season for camping or swimming, so theirs was the only car in the lot, as they’d hoped. This was the location they’d scoped out ahead of time that was walking distance from Hazel’s house for Gideon and Tempest, and that Ivy could drive to without Hazel seeing where she went when she drove away.
Tempest hadn’t been talkative on the drive. She was still distracted and distressed because of the visit from Moriarty. She couldn’t believe she was actually entertaining the thought, but … what if he was right? She couldn’t let that distract her now. She told herself that’s why she didn’t mention Moriarty’s appearance to either Ivy or Gideon. But was it the truth?
Gideon donned his hard hat and opened the back of the car to get the bag of tools and orange cones.
Tempest reached his side as he closed the back. “I wish we’d gotten you a cell phone. We could have bought a burner phone.”
“Like I said before, it wouldn’t matter. I’m the distraction. Not a lookout.” His eyes were barely visible under the hard hat, which was the idea, but she could still feel him looking intently at her. He squeezed both her hands. His fingers lingered longer than they should have. “See you back here in about an hour.”
Tempest slid back into the car.
“I know you’re keeping something from me,” Ivy said as she adjusted her wig in the rearview mirror.
“I’ve told you everything I’m going to do. We went over every contingency we could think of—”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Now isn’t the time for hinting. I have to start walking over to Hazel’s house in a few minutes.”
“Fifteen,” Ivy snapped. “We agreed we should give Gideon time to establish himself before you get in place and I knock. What happened to that precision you’re famous for?”
“The timer is already going on my phone. I’ll know when I need to leave. You’re jumpy because you’re nervous. I won’t be upset if you want to back out—”
“No! God, Tempest. I’m not abandoning you. We’re doing this. I just wish you’d tell me what’s really going on.”
“I’ve told you—”
“No. You haven’t. You’ve told me only what you want to. You don’t really let me in. You don’t let anyone in. You’re following the same pattern of keeping things to yourself.”
“I’m trying to clear my grandfather. I can’t lose him, Ivy. That’s the most important thing.”
Ivy’s expression softened. She nodded. “We’ll talk later. For now, I know what we need to do.”
Hazel opened the door for Ivy. As they’d expected, Hazel held a beautiful mug in her manicured hand.
Tempest was far enough away that she couldn’t hear their quiet conversation, but she could see them. Once Hazel ushered her inside, Ivy used the sleight of hand Tempest had shown her to make sure the door didn’t lock shut behind her. If that hadn’t worked, or if Hazel led Ivy to a living room directly next to the front door, their back-up plan was for Ivy to ask to use the bathroom and then leave a window open for Tempest. It appeared this back-up plan wasn’t needed. At least not yet.
In his construction gear, Gideon was running a loud power tool next to the retaining wall close to Hazel’s property. The wall faced the living room. This was their “force” to get Hazel to lead Ivy to her kitchen rather than to the living room next to the front door. He’d refused to touch the wall itself—a stonemason’s code of honor?—so he instead drilled a shallow hole a few feet from the wall.
Tempest made sure her hair was fully tucked under her cap and walked casually up to the door. Her plan had been to listen for the sound of Ivy fake-crying, but Gideon’s jackhammer drowned out the sound of everything coming from inside the house.
Another sound rumbled. A car. No, not just a car, but a delivery truck. One that slowed as it rounded the curve in the road. How did a delivery truck even fit on such a narrow winding road? The truck came to a stop. The driver killed the engine.
Tempest darted around the right side of the house. She didn’t dare stay where the delivery driver could see her, which meant she couldn’t see them, either. At least the incessant sound of Gideon’s jackhammer drowned out the sound of her feet skidding across the dirt.
A former stage magician, a librarian-in-training, and a stone carver. What could possibly go wrong?
As it turned out, quite a lot.
“Delivery,” a voice called as its owner rang the doorbell. A few moments later, the truck’s engine started up again.
If Hazel came to the door, she’d immediately see that Ivy had left it unlocked with a piece of plastic. Tempest pressed herself up against the wall of the house, staying clear of a nearby window. Could she make it back to the front door in time to remove it before Hazel got there?
“I hope you understand it’s my nature as a city girl.” Ivy’s raised voice came through the door. “So many packages are stolen from porches, I’d feel so much better if we bring yours inside. No, don’t worry. I’m already up. I’ll get it. You’ve already been so hospitable fixing me tea in the kitchen.”
Thank you, Ivy. She’d told Tempest everything she needed to know.
The original plan was for Ivy to dab her eyes with an irritant to get her fake tears flowing as she talked to Hazel about her memories of Corbin. When Tempest heard Ivy’s crying escalate in volume, Tempest would sneak in through the unlocked front door. Ivy must have realized how hard it would be for Tempest to hear them from the kitchen.
A large black bird flapped its wings from a branch of the enormous Douglas fir tree only a few yards away. It was high on the large tree, so she couldn’t get a close look at it, but she also couldn’t look away from the agitated bird. It couldn’t be a raven, could it? She was letting her imagination run away with her.
After waiting thirty seconds, Tempest let herself into the front door and found herself in a sunken living room. She knew she needed to stay focused and move quickly, but what she saw in the living room made her unable to move on. Above the fireplace, a five-foot-high painting of a black raven looked out over the room. The raven’s blue-black wings were outstretched as if in flight. The wings shimmered. She thought, at first, that they were real feathers. And there was something else. Two words, written in calligraphy with a silvery paint. Nam Fitheach.
Was that Gaelic? There was no way she was taking time to look it up on her phone.
She really needed to leave this room. The raven’s obsidian eyes bore into her, as if it could see her soul. The storm clouds behind the bird appeared to be moving ever so slightly. Or perhaps it was the wings of the raven. It had to be a trick of the light. Or something to do with the intensity with which she was staring at the raven’s inquisitive eyes.
Tempest pulled her eyes away from the unsettling image. What she saw next didn’t make her feel any better. A silver amulet with a deep-blue stone eye at its center rested on the mantle, underneath the painting. A talisman to ward off evil?
She forced herself to turn away from the display and look for where she needed to go. The hallway. Yes. The hallway was what would lead her to the bedrooms and home offices. She couldn’t see any of the doors off the hallway from the living room, so she tentatively poked her head into the hall.
The first piece of luck since arriving was that Hazel hadn’t knocked down any walls of the old house to give it an open floor plan. Tempest could move through the rooms without too much fear of being seen.
The first room she came upon was filled with camera and audio equipment, but no books or notebooks. Not Corbin’s office. This must be where Hazel filmed her show. Across from it was a bedroom and bathroom. At the end of the hallway was another small office, this one lined with books. A whole bookcase was filled with occult titles, with sections divided by bookends in the shape of ravens. Another contained hardback thrillers. The third and final bookcase was stacked with multiple copies of each of Corbin Colt’s books, with one shelf devoted to the two literary awards he’d received for his debut novel, The Raven.
Tempest hurried to the shelf of thrillers as murmurers of voices came from the kitchen.
There were no Agatha Christie novels on this shelf. Nor on any of the others.
“You need to leave.”
Tempest knocked her shoulder against the bookcase as she whirled around. One of the stone raven bookends teetered precariously.
But the voice hadn’t come from the doorway of Corbin’s office. It was farther away than that. Hazel was asking Ivy to leave.
“I’m sorry to have distressed you!” Ivy cried. “I loved him, too.”
Tempest caught the bookend before it could fall. Her eyes darted around the room as she rubbed her shoulder. There were no closets in this room. An old black trunk was pressed up against a wall, underneath a desk with a large monitor.
She yanked on the trunk. It scraped the hardwood floor as she tugged. The sound was mostly masked by Gideon’s distant jackhammering.
Inside were dozens of notebooks. And one book.
The book in the trunk wasn’t And Then There Were None. Not exactly. The large hardback was a collection of three Agatha Christie novels, including that one. But this had to be the book they were looking for.
Voices grew louder. Hazel was showing Ivy out. It was too late for Tempest to leave through the front door.
Tempest tucked the book under her arm and went to the room’s single window. Thankfully it didn’t have a screen she’d have to break. She unlatched the window and tugged upward.
The window didn’t budge.
She set the book down and yanked upward with both hands.
Nothing.
If she was about to be caught, she needed to know what was inside the book before it was taken away from her. She opened the front cover, revealing a book plate with Corbin’s name. Instead of a usual title page, a thicker page began the book. A thick sheet that hid the real purpose of the book.
This wasn’t a real book. It had been hollowed out in the center.
A handwritten manuscript lay inside.
Fifty or so pages of handwritten pages rested inside the false book. Tempest didn’t have time to read it right then and there, but she froze when she saw the title scrawled on the first page: The Vanishing of Ella Patel.
Her mom’s disappearance had been called “the vanishing of Emma Raj.” “Ella” was so close a name to “Emma,” and “Patel” was a short Indian surname like “Raj.” He wasn’t even trying to disguise his intentions.
Tempest had to know what was in those pages. Using all her strength, she shoved the window frame. It nudged open two inches. She shoved again. That did it. The window slid open wide enough for her to slip through the opening.
She dropped the book outside the window onto the ground, then followed it out the window herself. She tugged the window frame to close it behind her, picked up the book—then ran.
Corbin Colt had stolen her family’s story. He had been writing a book about her mom’s disappearance.
That’s what her grandfather was after. The story the Raven had stolen from her family.