“Should you really be leaving the village so much, after what happened to you?” Mum’s mouth twisted with worry. “I don’t want those nasty kidnappers to come back for you.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve cleared it with Detective Hayes. I know it seems strange, but honestly, the only way I’m coping right now is by distracting myself with work and training.”And hunting for the person who killed Kate and framed Morrie, but I’ll keep that to myself.
I told Mum all about Oscar and how much I loved him. She kissed me again and left us alone. As I watched her stroll off toward the green, Grimalkin leaped across the room in her cat form and practically plastered herself to the window. “Meow?” She scraped her claws along the glass, as if despairing that Mum would ever return.
I narrowed my eyes at the former cat. “Care to explain yourself? Last month my mother was public enemy number one.”
Grimalkin’s whiskers twitched, as if she was saying, “that was before I got to know her. I believe we’re going to be good friends.”
Something strange is going on. The two of them are up to something.
But I already had a more important mystery to focus on. Heathcliff flipped the shop sign to CLOSED and locked up downstairs. I dragged my weary body up to the flat and headed to the kitchen. Tea was essential. I flipped the kettle on to boil and pulled out four clean mugs before staring at Morrie’s and shoving it back on the shelf.
Tears pricked in my eyes.Don’t fall apart, Mina. Just shove the mug where you won’t stare at it.I bent down to hide it at the back of the cupboard under the sink. As I did, my hand brushed the edge of an unopened cat food box.
Weird. I could have sworn I’d finished a packet of food yesterday. Why hadn’t Mum opened another one for Grimalkin? She was supposed to feed her breakfast.
But Mum was unpredictable. I’d left her specific instructions on what and how much to feed Grimalkin. And that didn’t include fish from the bakery. Come to think of it, Mum’s handbag had smelled a little fishy, too. Probably she had some kind of organic, vitamin-infused cat food from one of her get-rich-quick schemes in there. I’d feel sorry for Grimalkin, but she seemed to enjoy it.
I unlocked the door to our room and slumped on the bed, arranging the pillows under the brightest lamp. I sipped my tea as I slipped Heathcliff’s phone from his discarded jacket pocket (it wasn’t like he’d miss it), downloaded my favorite apps, and scrolled around on the hunt for Tara Delphine.
I didn’t have to look for long. The first search result brought me to her Instagram profile. She had over fifty thousand followers – judging by their comments, mostly grotty old men fishing for the slip of a nipple. Most of her images showed her posing coquettishly in skintight superhero outfits.
No slut-shaming from me. Truthfully, Tara’s outfits looked fierce. She had this Harley Quinn ensemble I wouldkillfor. But I could see that Kate’s cosplays showed a higher quality. Many of the characters Kate cosplayed were already heavily sexualized – she didn’t feel the need to exaggerate that further. I liked how in her pictures Kate showed the characters at their most confident and powerful, and tried to bring across something of her own personality as well.
Tara’s website had her listed as doing a fan meet-and-greet as the cosplay guest of honor at FanCon down in London. The event was on this week for five days, but since we were already going to Wild Oats over the weekend, we’d have to fit in a visit on Friday.
But I have to go to guide dog training. And Inspector Hayes will want to know why I’m so interested in going to London—
Hang on. Edie said she wanted to take me and Oscar to a more populated and unfamiliar area so we could practice the commands I learned.I dialed Edie. When I told her I wanted to make a trip to London because Heathcliff was totally obsessed with Tara Delphine and he had tickets to meet her but I’d forgotten about it in my excitement, she thought it would be the perfect training outing for us. “Oscar and I will meet you at the Argleton station at 10AM tomorrow.”
Perfect. That gave me just enough time to meet Jo for breakfast. I needed to get the skinny on Kate’s autopsy results and figure out just how deep in the shite Morrie was.
* * *
Even though Heathcliff and Quoth wrapped themselves around me, I barely slept. I stared at the ceiling while the guys made adorable squeaking sounds, thinking about Morrie stuck in that cabin with only his ex-boyfriend for company. I ran over the details of the case over and over, but I couldn’t see a clear suspect. So much didn’t make sense.
If Kate successfully faked her death and escaped to the Philippines, what made her come back? Why was she in Barsetshire Fells? She must have been meeting someone…
And the question no one else seemed to want to ask, but that niggled at me more than anything. Why did Kate decide to fake her own death in the first place? I was certain the answer to that question was the key to solving the mystery and clearing Morrie’s name.
Eventually, I fell into a fitful sleep, waking to an angry alarm and Heathcliff snoring beside me. Quoth was already at the stove filling a bowl with nuts and berries when I padded into the kitchen. He handed me a mug of tea because he was amazing. I drank it as I swiped on some makeup, pulled on a long-sleeve skater dress covered in tiny bones I’d screen-printed myself, added my cherry Docs and my favorite bat purse, slipped Heathcliff’s phone (now my phone) into my pocket, and headed outside to meet Jo.
It was a surprisingly beautiful day for February in England. With sunlight pouring down, drying the rain, I could see. A rogue lime-green squiggle of light flashed across my vision, but I was too distracted by a weird noise emitting from Heathcliff’s phone.
It’s never made that noise before.
I pulled the phone from my pocket and held it up to my face to peer at the screen. An alert flashed across the screen.
WARNING: POSSIBLE DRACULA EVENT
Morrie’s algorithm.In all the chaos of being kidnapped and Morrie going into hiding and trying to clear his name, I’d almost forgotten the looming shadow that threatened not just Nevermore Bookshop, but the entire world. Count Dracula was here in England, and he was enacting the plan he tried to carry out in Bram Stoker’s book before Van Helsing and his crew stopped him.
I clicked on the link. A news headline buzzed on the screen. Beneath numerous links to stories about Morrie’s disappearance and pleas from the police to help if the public catch sight of him, was a piece about a robbery in the nearby village of Lower Loxham. A garden center specializing in collectible plants had two rare Romanian orchids stolen last night.
My heart pattered. Lower Loxham was only a forty-mile drive from Argleton. If Dracula was this close—
SMACK.
