On the way home, I stopped at the library. I had a junky old laptop that was one of Mordechai’s hand-me-downs, but half the time it didn’t work, and the other half it was too slow. The community public library was on the way to my house from Mordechai’s, so it worked out. It wasn’t like Steve was going to miss me. I suspected he’d already left the duplex again, destined for another couch.
I settled into the workstation, glad I was one of only a few patrons in the computer room. I cleaned the keyboard with one of the hand wipes at the corner of the table and pulled out the copies I’d pocketed from Mordechai’s office.
Officer Hernandez hadn’t objected when I offered to leave her to her review of the rabbi’s files, silently praying she wouldn’t find my file but thinking even if she did, it was empty—and possibly had always been that way. Could be I was just that boring.
Could be.
She asked if Mordechai’s nephew knew I was there, and I honestly told her I didn’t think he knew I existed. She didn’t seem surprised, just smiled a little sadly. I think she’d started to like me, or at least was willing to believe I hadn’t somehowcaused the rabbi’s death. Either way, I marked that as a reasonable step forward in our relationship. I hoped she didn’t search too hard, though. If the nephew found her in there, would he let her see the files? Wasn’t there some sort of rabbi confidentiality thing in play?
The pages of Max’s letter felt solid and reassuring beneath my fingers as I smoothed them out on the table. I scanned his neat, close-cropped handwriting.Handwriting. That startled me. He’d written an honest-to-God letter, not a text, not an email. Who did that? And the photos, too, had been printed. Not sent digitally. No one would have accused Mordechai of being a tech wiz, but he had email, for fuck’s sake. Who wrote letters anymore?
The story was strangely sparse, though the letter was three pages long. Max had come back for this past Christmas to find things had become very strange at ye olde homestead. Grandma had become a recluse, Aunt Emily had moved in, and Mom and Dad weren’t speaking to each other. Max’s younger brother—younger by quite a fair margin, like more than twenty years—had taken to showing up in doorways like some sort of horror movie kid.
And then, of course, all the horses had been shot.
“Jesus.” I sat back in my seat, then leaned forward again, hitting Google to figure out where Max and his clan called home. The estate or whatever you wanted to call it was outside of a small town innocuously called “Hooperton,” about three hours away by car if there was no traffic.
Like most places outside Chicago’s city limits, public transportation was virtually nonexistent. There were no buses to Hooperton. You could take an Uber, but that would cost like a million dollars, and your driver would probably harvest your kidney.
Granted, Max had dangled ten grand in front of me as if it were nothing. I could call him and ask him to play chauffeur or send one of his minions to shuttle me from the city to his creepy little kingdom. But that didn’t feel right, either. For one, I wouldn’t have my own wheels, so escaping was an issue. For another, being stuck in a car driven by a potentially possessed guy for three hours didn’t sound like a good time either. Max had seemed straight-up normal to me, but I hadn’t really looked at him closely. Perhaps there was a reason why the rabbi hadn’t met with him yet.
No. I rejected that idea as soon as I had it. Mordechai didn’t turn anyone away. And he’d made those random notes on Max’s letter in rabbi shorthand, letters and figures and shapes I didn’t really understand—didn’t want to understand. He’d been planning to meet with Max; he simply hadn’t gotten the chance. If he’d been here right now, he’d probably tell me that God had needed him more.
Yeah, well, God was wrong on that count.
I hunched in my chair, staring at the computer. With the additional search term of Hooperton, I was able to pull up a little more information on the Grahams, but not much. There were articles in the local newsfeeds about donations and business sales. There was an old society scroll in Chicago about Emily Winslow, sister of Mrs. Graham and only in her thirties, who might be the aunt flown home to roost. I doubted it though. There was some resemblance to the figure I’d seen in the photos, but this woman was beautiful, laughing, blonde and bright. She didn’t look like the type to shut herself away in a moldering Midwestern castle.
None of that solved my transportation problem though.
I chewed on the inside of my mouth. The rabbi’s car was definitely out, though that would have been easiest. I didn’t want to pay for an Uber.
Steve had a car.
“Yeah, I know,”I answered the inner voice before I could stop myself. I grimaced. Talking to a demon was never a good idea, unless you were about to expel it.
I blew out a breath and glanced at the card I’d lined up neatly below Max’s letter. Before I could lose my nerve, I flicked to my phone app and keyed in the numbers.
He picked up on the second ring.
“Hello, this is Max.” His voice sounded normal, open. Not possessed.
“Hi, Max. This is Delia Thompson. We met the other?—”
“Yes.” Something shifted in his tone then, and I found myself sitting taller in my chair. “You’re coming.”
The hope in his voice cut right through me. “I don’t know what I can do,” I said quickly. That was a lie. He’d suggested what I should do already, but it wasn’t a good idea, and definitely not a legal one.
Max didn’t seem to care. “Absolutely. Just to check things out. See what you think. Anything would help, seriously. And before you ask, my offer stands. I’ll have the money for you when you arrive, or I can send it directly to your account.”
That was adorable. Like I was that professional. Still, I liked Max for it. “You can give it to me when I see you, that’s fine,” I said. I squared the edges of the letter. Monday seemed a little too eager, even to me. And Tuesday would give me time to back down if I wanted. Which I probably should. Which I knew I wouldn’t. Besides, I needed to track down Steve. With the right amount of bullshit, it wouldn’t be that hard to use his car for one day, right? “Tuesday afternoon work for you?”
“Yes.” Pause. “Thank you, Delia.”
Thank you, Delia,the creature inside me mocked, both furious with Max for the way he made me feel and needing the guy at the same time. I knew how it felt.
“Of course.” I kept my voice as professional as possible, if only to keep from screaming. “See you Tuesday.”
Tuesday dawned almost obscenelybright and cheerful. Steve, who shockingly was still taking up space in the duplex, seemed to buy that I was going on a job interview across town, though what upwardly mobile aspirations there would be for deli counter workers, I couldn’t guess. He didn’t care, just handed over his keys. He’d been weird ever since the rabbi had died, staying out at the clubs later, coming home via Uber or God only knew who. Then again, I’d been acting weird too, I supposed. It was a weird time.
