“Hello, Professor Grae. We haven’t got the results of the toxicology panel back yet. This isn’tCSI, you know. In real life, these things take time.”
“I realize that. But I thought you might give the medical examiner a heads-up to look forBrugmansiaor oleander poisoning, or other toxic botanicals.”
“Brug-what?”
“Brugmansia. ‘Angel’s-trumpet’ is the common name.”
“Well, okay, but it’s probably not necessary. I think we got our guy.”
“You do? Who is it?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. It’ll be in the papers once it’s made public.”
“And here I thought we were friends.”
The detective gave a bark of a laugh. “Okay, my friend, I’ll toss you a bone: Turns out Delilah Mason did have a will, and guess who’s a beneficiary? Your buddy Tariq Johnson. She left him twenty-five thousand.”
“But for a woman with her fortune, that’s not all that much.” Harper’s voice sounded hollow to her own ears. Did they really think Tariq did this?
“You can hire a hit man for a hell of a lot less. To some people, life is cheap.”
“So…are you saying that Tariq is your main suspect?” Harper demanded, her heart in her throat. “Do you have any evidence? Are you—”
“Whoa, Nellie. I’m not saying any such thing. In fact, it’s another fellow entirely. Like I say, it’ll be in the papers soon enough.”
That was a relief, at least. But who had he identified as the culprit?
Only after Harper hung up did she remember that she had forgotten to retrieve Soren Perles’s journal from Ellen’s safe. She peered out the window. Ellen’s garden lights were on, but the bungalow was dark.
Probably it was best to go to sleep without Soren Perles’s voice in her head anyway. She did not want to dream about him again. Better to work her way through more of the journal tomorrow, in the light of day.
Harper awoke at three in the morning, again thinking she heard someone outside her apartment. It must be the wind from the storm rattling the door. Her fault—she had forgotten to call a locksmith to have it fixed. Branches tapped and scraped at the window, reminding her of the Witch Tree, reaching out to the windows of the Perles Mansion.
She tried to ignore the strange sounds, rein in her imagination, and let herself fall back to sleep.
Until someone spoke, right beside her.
“Where is it?”
Thirty
Her eyes flew open.
A man was standing over her.
“The journal. Where is it?”he whispered fiercely. She could barely make him out in the dim light streaming in through her gingham curtains: Asher Mason.
“Asher? It—it’s there, in the basement. At the Perles Mansion. On the floor, where you threw it.”
“It isn’t. I looked! And you locked me in!”
In one quick move, Harper rolled, jumped out of the other side of the bed, and grabbed her pepper spray and car keys from the nightstand. A flick of the car fob set off her car alarm. The neighbors were going to love her.
“Asher, you need to leave. Now. The neighbors will be calling the police in about twenty seconds. Tomorrow, I’ll go back and help you find the journal.”Right after hell freezes over.
“You took it, didn’t you?” Asher said, clearly bothered by the shrieking car alarm but still visibly angry. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Listen to me, Asher. Please. You’ve been under a lot of stress lately, you experienced a sudden tragedy, and I’m not sure you’re—”
