10
Ipick up a weathered copy ofEmmaand sit on the couch in the library. I didn’t put an AC unit in here since we don’t use this room all that often, and it’s sweltering. But I need a moment alone before the guys wake up and I break the news to them that I’m going to willingly step into a trap.
A trap I can’t quite make sense of.
This guy—Mr. Trent—is presumably the same guy who sent me the case files about my parents’ death. The same guy who then set a golem loose on the city. Who invited me to a private lunch meeting to discuss God knows what. And he’s probably the same guy who showed up at Lyra’s a few years ago looking for magical items. He was bad news then. I’m sure he’s even worse now.
I run my fingers over the spine of the book and close my eyes.Are you around, Mom?I’m not doing a summoning spell again, but damn, I wish I could talk to my mom again…or my great aunt Mary. She’s the one who’d have the most information, actually. She’d know the history of the house, if anything was hidden inside the walls.
And I could ask her why she left everything to me.
Because she had to have known I had magic inside of me. The rest of the family is far from close, but there are others. Am I to assume they’re regular old people with nothing supernatural about them?
I hug the book to my chest and let out a breath. Why does it seem like the more answers I get, the more questions I have? Finding things out, fleshing out every single detail until I know exactly what’s going on…that’s part of who I am. It’s what makes me a kickass detective on the Philly police force.
And it’s going to drive me fucking insane. Because unless I can call upon my dead aunt, I’m not going to get answers to those questions.
“What would you do?” I whisper, thinking about my mother. “If you were still alive and all this was happening to me. Would you try to stop me? Tell me it’s too dangerous and too obvious.” I blink and it hits me that this is too obvious. Like way too obvious. Almost out of a movie obvious.
Which, for some odd reason, seems like it’s part of the master plan. Setting the book down, I leave the library, needing some cooler air.
The basement door opens and Thomas steps out. His hair is messy and his large wings block out the light from the stairs behind him. He looks at me with his famous crooked grin, and for a split second I let myself get lost in his eyes.
And then I remember that he’s going to turn to stone in a few weeks if I don’t get my shit together.
“Did you have a nice nap?” I ask, giving him a teasing smile.
“Slept like a baby,” he replies dryly. I move into the kitchen, giving the rest of the guys room to leave the basement. Cutting to the chase, I wave them all into the dining room. I’ve already prepared snacks, hoping food will soften the blow.
“Something interesting happened,” I start, pulling the invitation out and setting it on the table. Hasan grabs it first, looking at the letters with a little bit of confusion. He speaks English with no problem but still has a hard time reading anything other than his native language. Jacques takes it from him, reads it, and then looks back at me.
“What is this?” he asks.
“An invitation.”
“Yes, I can see that. Why is it significant.”
“Because it’s the same handwriting as the other letter.” I slide the first letter across the table. “I’m not an expert on handwriting analysis, but I’ve seen it done enough to know what to look for. The same person wrote both letters.”
“The same person who tried to kill you with the golem?” Gilbert asks.
“Right.”
Thomas reaches across the table and takes the invitation. “The guy wants to meet you tomorrow afternoon?”
“Yes, and I’m going,” I say bluntly. “I need answers.”
“You haven’t thought this through,” Hasan tells me.
I nod. “I have. I know how this looks, going to meet this mysterious guy alone, but I can’t risk him letting any more monsters loose in the city, and he knows about my parents’ death.”
“But you don’t know that,” Jacques presses, and my defenses immediately go up.
“He has all the files. He sent them to me.”
“Right. He has the files,” Jacques goes on. “But does that mean he knows about the demon? Isn’t it possible he curated a list of deaths with similar causes? Couldn’t you do that yourself if you wanted to and go through the computers and the internet or whatever it’s called and find people from all over the country who died the same way?”
What he’s saying has merit, and I hate it. This guy collected case files from murders just like my parents’. He spent years on this. He has to know something. Because if he doesn’t, then I don’t think anyone will.
