Snap.
All eyes were on the horrifying figure as its beak hit the window again.
How had the raven from Tempest’s notebook come to life?
Ivy’s hands flew to her mouth.
“Ada-kaduvulae,” Ash murmured.
“How…?” Sylvie’s voice trembled.
“What the…?” Even Sanjay’s voice wasn’t steady.
Kumiko’s hands gripped the arms of her wheelchair.
Beyond those small gestures and exclamations, nobody moved. It was as if they had been frozen in place. Tempest wasn’t immune. She knew, rationally, that she couldn’t be seeing what she was. There had to be another explanation. A trick. Had her grandfather planned this? From the shocked look on his face, she seriously doubted it.
The raven’s head tilted to one side, as if it was examining the curious specimens through the glass.
Though Tempest couldn’t see his face, there was something familiar about the movement. Her notebook … She’d left it in her car when she’d gathered the suspects together at midnight. That was right after her abandoned call to Moriarty. Even though they hadn’t spoken, he’d have seen that she called. Had he broken into her car?
Tempest willed herself to run out the door and find out for certain, but another glance at Sylvie gave her a better idea. She wasn’t going to wait and see what Moriarty might do. She could take this distraction and turn it to her advantage.
“The Raven,” Tempest stage-whispered loudly enough to command the room. “He’s returned.” She drew her arm up slowly, until her outstretched hand pointed dramatically at the raven figure. It was an overly dramatic gesture outside of a theater, but her instincts were good. Nobody moved. They all stared in rapt attention at the intimidating figure beyond the window.
“It can’t be.” Sylvie’s voice shook. She lumbered toward the window, as if compelled.
Snap.
The beak hit the window so hard the glass shook. Sylvie faltered, then kept moving. With each slow step, it looked as if she dragged an invisible boulder behind her. In a few seconds she’d be close enough to see it was simply a man in a costume.
“Be gone, Raven!” Tempest commanded.
He cocked his head. Though Tempest couldn’t see his eyes, she swore she could feel them. Tempest was certain it was Moriarty in a steampunk costume that looked real through the glass. Well … relatively certain.
“Be gone,” Tempest repeated.
The figure wearing the black beak gave Tempest a nearly imperceptible nod. He raised his arms, swooped as if taking flight—then disappeared.
Sylvie screamed and collapsed onto the floor.
“I think you have something to tell us,” Tempest said gently. Sylvie wasn’t looking at her, so she allowed herself a glance at the window. Nothing but trees were visible beyond the glass. She knew the figure had neither taken flight nor disappeared. The window didn’t reach the ground. All he’d had to do was swoop down theatrically to vanish from their line of sight.
“Lavinia ruined everything,” Sylvie sobbed. “Years ago, Corbin stole my heart. I was his muse. Not Lavinia. I was the one who made him feel special. I was the one who kept him going even when his books got less popular. I knew we wouldn’t have a real future together, but what we had was enough. There was no expectation he’d leave Lavinia. He was comfortable in his life here. The kind of comfort you get from a ratty bathrobe or a broken-in old shoe.”
“An old shoe?” Lavinia repeated in a whisper. “That’s what you really think of me?”
“He loved you, in a way,” Sylvie said, “but I was the one who inspired him. I accepted that we had no future together. I was the tragic heroine of a great book. A secret love affair that could never see the light of day. My lover died. That’s what people inferred when I told them I couldn’t be with my beloved in this life.”
“But you killed him,” Lavinia’s voice was stronger now. “The man you claim to have loved—”
“Only when I learned that I wasn’t special at all.” Sylvie wiped her hands across her tear-stained cheeks. “It was only a few months ago that I learned Corbin was so unhappy with Lavinia that he had been having a string of affairs over the course of his marriage, including this new young internet star … that was too much. He betrayed me. They both did.”
“Sanjay.” Kumiko nudged him. “You’d better tie her up now.”
“I’m telling you what you want to know,” Sylvie seethed. “You don’t have to restrain me.”
“She’s worried about her daughter’s safety,” Ash said, not unkindly.
“She’s not in danger.” The fury in Sylvie’s voice belied the sentiment. “I don’t want Lavinia to die. Only suffer. Corbin was the one who didn’t deserve to live. He was clueless as to the effect he had on so many lives. To him, our affair was no big deal. He loved the adoration of women and even expected it. He was beautiful. A Greek god with raven hair. Of course women would throw themselves at his feet. He thought he was good to us because he made us feel special, so no harm done. He never hid the fact that he was married. But as an artiste, he couldn’t be shackled by monogamy.”
Sylvie broke off and laughed without humor. A small smile formed on her lips before she spoke again. “That was also his weakness. He didn’t find it suspicious when I called and told him about the séance to burn his papers he left behind. ‘I left notes behind?’ he said. He hadn’t realized he’d done so, but I knew it wouldn’t be suspicious because he wrote so much on paper. Plus, he wouldn’t put it past Lavinia to steal important notes of his, just to make him suffer. I was also the one who planted the idea in Lavinia’s mind to have a cathartic bonfire. Corbin also knew I loved his writing—it’s so much better than people gave him credit for—so he didn’t find it suspicious that I’d tell him I was offended that Lavinia was going to burn his manuscript notes.
“It was so easy to string him along, making him feel like it was his own idea to use the séance as a dramatic opportunity to play a practical joke on Lavinia. Then Corbin would be able to publicly shame her for stealing his precious words that she had no right to burn, taking back the pages after the ‘practical joke’ was over, before she could burn his work. All I had to do was play to his ego, which wasn’t difficult at all.”
“I understand how you manipulated him,” Tempest said. “But killing him in such a short time?”
“I practiced hundreds of times putting latex gloves on and off quickly, and where to stab someone to be sure to get his heart so he’d die quickly, leaving the thin blade inside him so they wouldn’t look for my gloves but would instead look for the weapon. You were right about the tape you mentioned, when you thought it was Ellery. I couldn’t be certain I got things absolutely right, so I had to confuse things as much as possible, but still make sure everything pointed toward Lavinia. But because Ashok was a doctor who could know how to stab someone in the heart and had blood on his hands, he became the main suspect. Not Lavinia. I didn’t know about the restraining order, either.
“People don’t always do what you want them to when you manipulate them,” Sylvie concluded. “It’s not like in one of our book-club books. It’s a lot harder to frame someone than you’d think.”