Singh watches me. “Well, the card points to you. That certainly says something.”
I freeze, my hand halfway to my own cup of tea. “Am I a suspect again?” I say, my heart pounding. “Because Kit and Tibby were there, and—”
“No, no, nothing like that,” says Singh with surprising reassurance. “I simply mean that whoever it was certainly wanted to pin it on you, didn’t they?”
I exhale, relieved, even though proving my innocence nolonger feels like the priority. Maybe because I’ve had to do it again and again, and I’m sick of it. “Which would point right back to Ben,” I say.
“Yes. Or someone else who has a grudge against you,” he adds. “Like Michaels.”
“Who’s dead,” I say flatly, pushing aside my own regret for not visiting him the day of the premiere. Nothing could have convinced Tibby to make room in our packed schedule for a trip to a penitentiary, and there’s no faulting myself for that one. It was inevitable. “Any leads there?”
Singh raises an eyebrow. “You’re full of questions today, aren’t you?”
“Isn’t that why you’re here?” I say, picking up a piece of toast and nibbling on the corner. “Otherwise this could’ve easily been a text. You want to brainstorm with someone who’s even more paranoid than you are.”
“ ‘Paranoid’ isn’t the word I’d use,” he says, digging into a bowl of fresh fruit. “At least not to describe myself. Any thoughts?”
I think for a moment as I slowly chew, my unharnessed thoughts flitting from one dead end to the next. I know it’s Ben. I know it as well as I know my own damn name. But without proof—without a sufficient trail of evidence—my certainty is worthless.
“I don’t have all the pieces,” I say at last. “I don’t think any of us do. But people like Maisie and Kit…they know Ben better than I ever will. And if we want to start somewhere, we need to start by talking to them. That’s the only way we’re going to outsmart him.”
“By surrounding him like a pack of wolves and picking him apart until he has no choice but to give up?” says Singh, and I nod, hating myself for even thinking of dragging Kit into this.
“More or less. How did Michaels die without anyone seeing him hang himself?”
“Apparently the CCTV system in the prison was having technical difficulties.”
Now it’s my turn to raise my eyebrow. “Right. And you’re checking into the people who could’ve made that happen?”
“Naturally. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about Michaels that could be useful, would you? Hewasasking foryou.”
I hesitate, then shake my head. “I told you everything,” I say, and it’s the truth. Or at least I think it is, but as soon as I’ve said it, the so-called chat with him in his study replays in my mind, beat by beat if not word for word. And then, in a flash of memory, I glance at the Victorian writing desk nearby, which neither Kit nor I actually use, considering we’re more adept at email than we are handwritten letters.
There, sitting innocuously between a gold container of several fancy fountain pens and a picture of Kit and me taken over the summer, sits the puzzle box Guy Fawkes gave me.
I still haven’t cracked it. Maybe I should have tried harder, but after he was arrested, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Still, I know that if I mention it now, Singh will take it and I’ll never see it again, and something in me bristles at that—at the idea that I’m not good enough to solve it on my own. Which is ridiculous, because this is literally a case of life and death, but it reallycan’tmatter, can it? Now that the case is solved and Michaels isdead. It’s just a toy he gave me to drive me bonkers, and to distract me from the real game at hand.
But that game is over now, and all I have left is an unsolved puzzle. I open my mouth to mention it, but before I say a word, something stops me. My pride, or maybe whatever strange bond was forged between me and John Phillip Michaels in that study. This is personal, between him and me, and I can’t stand the thought of anyone else trying to open it.
“I’ll tell you what,” says Singh, breaking the heavy silence between us. “I’ll gather together what I can and meet you back here after the funeral. Bring the people you trust.”
“Not many of those,” I say without thinking, and Singh offers me a grimace of a smile.
“That’s how you know you’re doing your job right,” he says. “I’m sorry about your friend, Evangeline. I’ll see you afterward.”
He stays only long enough to finish his fruit and tea, and I see him to the door. As soon as I close it behind him, I wipe the sad smile from my face—my default these past few days—and turn toward the desk.
In three quick strides, I take the puzzle box and turn it over in my hand, and once again I start to twist its pieces, trying to find a solution that seems like it can’t possibly exist.
—
At a quarterto noon, Kit and I make our way hand in hand to the drawing room closest to the private family entrance. He’s barely said a word all morning, and I don’t press, only telling him what he needs to know about my meeting with Singh—and that there will be another one after the funeral, if he decides toattend. He said nothing to that, either, but at least it wasn’t a straight-up refusal.
I curl up beside Kit on the uncomfortably ornate sofa, tracing patterns over his palm with my fingertips and resting my head on his shoulder as we wait for the others. I made sure to tuck a pack of tissues beside Guy’s puzzle in my shoulder bag—which is the exact shade of black as my knee-length dress and jacket—and I’m trying not to be obvious about watching Kit for any signs of his flat expression slipping when the others finally start to trickle in.
A subdued Helene and Nicholas are first, stopping by from their apartment in Kensington Palace so they can accompany Maisie. Helene’s eyes are red, and though Nicholas looks unaffected, he’s as attentive to her as I am to Kit. It’s only then that I remember Rosie’s mother is one of Helene’s best friends, and the guilt in my gut twists even tighter, making me wish I hadn’t eaten breakfast.
“I can’t believe Alexander isn’t coming,” says Helene, dabbing her eyes with a black silk handkerchief. “Of all the things to miss…”
