Tempest pulled up in front of Lavinia’s house.
A bloody handprint had been discovered on a windowpane inside Lavinia’s Lair—next to two feathers of a raven. The fingerprints in the blood matched Sylvie’s.
Tempest drove over as soon as she was done giving her statement to the officer who’d arrived at Fiddler’s Folly and found Darius in the workshop. Since Tempest and Ash had both been at the séance, and the crimes might have been connected, the officer wanted to speak with both of them. Separately.
The officer asked more questions than he answered, but Tempest learned this much: in addition to the blood, there was “other evidence” leading them to be concerned that Sylvie had been killed. But Darius’s initial information when he banged on Tempest’s door wasn’t the full story. There was no body. The police were treating it as a missing persons case, not a murder. Not yet. This was a possible kidnapping, but a suspected second murder.
For a brief moment, Tempest thought there was a silver lining. Her grandfather was confined to the tree house by his ankle monitor. There was no way he could have harmed Sylvie. But that wasn’t strictly true. Ash had been in contact with numerous people. He could have hired someone. It wasn’t true, but the police would be sure to look into it.
Tempest walked along the outskirts of the crime scene tape surrounding Lavinia’s Lair. She caught a glimpse of the bloody handprint on the window. A streak of red stained the glass as if a hand had desperately tried the break the glass but been dragged away.
A sound from above drew her gaze from the bloodied windowpane. A flock of black birds circled overhead. Tempest considered what to do next. Whatever it was, it would definitely not include a movie night to watch The Birds with Ivy.
A figure came into view. In her wheelchair, Lavinia’s mother, Kumiko, was wrapped in a soft black shawl that Tempest couldn’t help but think looked like it had been made out of the feathers of a large black bird. This was a woman who everyone underestimated. Tempest wouldn’t make that mistake.
“Things look bad for my daughter,” Kumiko said.
“I know,” Tempest murmured demurely. No. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t capable of acting demure.
Kumiko gripped the handles of her chair with frustration. “Lavinia isn’t guilty. I want you to find her—and clear her.”
“Find her? Isn’t she talking to the police like the rest of us did?”
Kumiko looked up at the birds that were still circling. “My daughter wasn’t at home when the newspaper delivery man saw the bloody handprint and called the police.”
“She was already at Veggie Magic?”
Kumiko shook her head. “I thought you were intelligent. If I knew where she was, I wouldn’t have asked for your help. I’m not as mobile as I used to be. I need you to find her. Therefore, she is missing. I’m worried she might have been harmed herself, but the police don’t seem to find that theory compelling.”
“You tried calling her?”
Kumiko threw her hands into the air. “I have done everything I can think to do. My daughter knows that someone around that table killed Corbin. We all know it wasn’t a fan. It was someone at that séance table. Someone in that room with us. Unless you believe in Corbin’s fantastical supernatural plots. Which I don’t. I know it could have been your grandfather.”
“You don’t really think—”
Kumiko cut her off with a wave of her hand. “I don’t think so. I don’t know for certain, either.” She paused. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. It held a vulnerability Tempest hadn’t heard before. “Lavinia is my only child. My husband is gone. Now that someone has kidnapped that vile woman, they’re trying to make it look like Lavinia did it.”
“Because Sylvie was attacked here.”
Kumiko made a noise between a grunt and a sigh. “Do keep up. I believed you were the smart one. They’re not treating my daughter’s disappearance as a kidnapping, because there’s no physical evidence. They’re considering the possibility that she fled.”
“The person who harmed Sylvie could be keeping Lavinia hostage to make her look guilty.”
“I don’t know what’s happening. What I do know is that we both want to help prove the innocence of our loved ones, and that you solved a murder last year. We can help each other.”
“You know something that could help me clear my grandfather?”
“I have the key to the basement. Lavinia’s Lair. After the police have gone, I can let you inside so you can look for whatever clues you need.”
Tempest considered the proposition. She knew Kumiko didn’t trust her, and Tempest didn’t trust Kumiko. Not only because of her interest in her grandfather, but because she’d been there the night of the séance. Tempest knew not to underestimate a woman just because she was physically frail and in a wheelchair recovering from a bad fall. But she also understood Kumiko wanting to help her daughter, just as Tempest wanted to help her grandfather.
“If we work together,” Tempest began, “we have to explore all options. Wherever they lead.”
“You can believe in my and my daughter’s guilt all you want,” said Kumiko. “We’re both innocent. I’m not afraid of the truth.”
“Tell me what you know.”
Kumiko had learned that Sylvie’s neighbor was the first to report her missing, even before a newspaper delivery person had seen the bloody handprint and called the police. Before the blood was found, the police hadn’t taken any action. An adult can forget to turn off their alarm clock, and though it is irresponsible to leave a barking dog inside, it was hardly enough for her to be officially “missing.”
But after a frantic newspaper delivery man described the blood on the window, the police woke up Kumiko to let them into the basement and then sent officers to question everyone involved in the first murder.
“Sylvie’s neighbor heard Sylvie’s door slam at around five o’clock,” Kumiko said. “They share a wall, so it’s not unusual for her to hear things. She went back to sleep until Sylvie’s alarm clock went off at five thirty and continued blaring through the wall, along with a barking dog. The neighbor complained about the loud alarm to the building manager. At six, she complained once more. The manager finally agreed to open the apartment door. They found the apartment empty except for an agitated dog, who bolted out to the bushes. Her neighbor called the police, but they explained there was nothing they could do. At six thirty, the newspaper delivery person saw the handprint reflected in the window with the light of his head lamp.”
There were definitely advantages to being underestimated. Tempest hadn’t gotten nearly that much information from the officer who’d questioned her. Both Sylvie and Lavinia were missing—or worse. But even with that much information, there was far more they didn’t know.
“Only Sylvie’s blood was found inside Lavinia’s Lair?” Tempest asked.
“What was missing might be even more important.” Kumiko paused to scowl at the birds circling overhead. “The rug in the entryway has been removed. So was one of the mallets next to the windows. The ones your father’s crew insisted on placing in case of an emergency so there would be a second exit. One of them is gone.”
Tempest winced. The metal mallets were strong enough to break glass. She didn’t want to think about what they would do to a skull. “The amount of blood suggests she’s dead?”
“It’s not the amount of blood.” Kumiko pointed to a spot of ground beyond the crime-scene tape. “There are drag marks leading to the driveway.”
Tempest winced. This was bad. So bad. “As if a rolled-up rug, holding something long and heavy, had been dragged away.” Could someone be alive under those circumstances?
Tempest’s phone rang. Both of them jumped.
“Ivy, sorry I missed your earlier calls. A lot has happ—”
“Tempest. I don’t know what’s going on. But whatever internet weirdo told you about Detective Rinehart had it right. I can’t find anything about him before ten years and three months ago. It’s like he didn’t exist.”