“Have unlimited power to conjure anything from demons, to the devil himself? To destroy your enemies? Hell, to change world events? No, that sounds terrible.”
His demeanor is off. Classic obfuscation.
“How long have you been dabbling?” I ask.
“Oh, I would call it more than dabbling,” he says. “One does not make deals with wizards and demons for laughs.”
“What sort of deals?” I ask.
“I thought you were here about the fossil theft.”
“I am,” I say. “I just happen to know a thing or two about magic. This book here is not normal or common. Hell, it might even be illegal. That’s human skin.”
His eyes narrow, and crap, I’m pretty sure they just blinked sideways, like a crocodile’s eyes. Or any number of lizards. “Say, who are you anyway? You don’t have an aura.”
I continue on without comment, circling through the front living room as though simply getting the lay of the place. The space is modest, lived-in, but there’s a faint sense of things having been recently reset: surfaces wiped down, furniture nudged back into place. Near the couch sits a laundry basket, conspicuously full of freshly washed and neatly folded clothes.
What catches my attention isn’t the care taken, but what peeks out from the stack: the unmistakable edges of torn fabric. A sweatshirt split along the seams, sweatpants ripped clean through the thigh, the damage too extensive to be ordinary wear and tear, and certainly not fashionably torn. The cloth looks clean now, softened by detergent and heat, but the damage remains: jagged, stretched, as if the body that once filled them had suddenly needed far more room than the garments were designed to allow.
“Did you steal the bones, Mark?”
“No.”
“What do you know of the theft?”
He looks down at his hands. “They haven’t filled me in much.”
“Where were you on the night of the theft?” I ask casually as I turn back toward the laundry basket. My inner alarm has begun toblip, but not overwhelmingly so. No immediate danger, but something is lurking in the shadows, even if it’s the shadows of Mark’s own mind.
Mark’s smile thins. “That was, what, three days ago?”
“Yes.”
“I was here all week, alone in my house. That much I know.”
I take a slow sip of my coffee, my eyes lingering on the laundry. “Rough night?”
“Maybe.” His gaze sharpens. “You never answered my question.”
“We all have questions,” I reply, unhurried. “Sometimes we don’t get the answers we seek.”
I let the silence stretch, watching the way his shoulders hold too much tension, then turn toward the front door. Something about Mark Healy doesn’t quite add up. Or maybe it adds up a little too neatly.
I thank him politely and step out onto the porch, the door clicking shut behind me. The crisp Brea air fills my lungs, cool and clean.
But inside, within the bright white walls and charming interior, something dark and serpentine is coiled tight.
I can’t read his mind. I certainly can’t compel him to talk. But I’ve learned to trust my instincts.
And right now, they’re whispering:watch this one.
Chapter Seven
It’s dark by the time I pull into my driveway.
I shut off the engine, lean back in the seat, and close my eyes, replaying the events of the afternoon.
Mark Healy’s house had been wired top to bottom; at least two exterior cameras under the eaves, two more inside the living room blinking faintly, red eyes watching every inch. That alone put him on my radar. What secrets was he protecting? And what really sparked my curiosity was the way his fingers fidgeted when I mentioned the theft; in particular, his over-rehearsed casualness when he said, “They haven’t filled me in much.”
