27. Chapter 27
Chapter 27
C rouching behind the dumpster, Emily gave Sarah a thumbs up. Sarah nudged Gracie, who was staring daydream-like at the brownstone, and they headed up the steps.
Ralkin’s house, much to Emily’s relief, didn’t look that different in the present. It had a few flowerpots at the front, and the door had been painted blue, but from the outside, at least, it was the same.
Let’s hope they also kept the basement.
The door opened to reveal a silver-haired lady wearing a knee-length skirt and a patterned vest. From her position on the other side of the street, Emily had a good vantage point for observing but not as much hearing.
“… have a poll,” Sarah was saying. “Two minutes of your time, tops.”
More murmuring followed. Emily clutched the handle of the dumpster. The open door was all she needed for access—but they were huddled too close together. She couldn’t get inside without toppling someone over.
“… and make the neighborhood more kid-friendly?” Sarah continued.
“Well, I’m not sure this is any of my concern …” the lady wavered.
“And cats!” Gracie spoke up. “It includes cats, too.”
Murmur, murmur, and then the lady moved aside.
Heartbeat, wait. Heartbeat, stop.
Emily ran across the street and up the steps, nimbly slipping past her friends and the old lady. She half-turned to give Sarah a double thumbs-up—even though she wouldn’t see it—then stepped into the hallway … and almost onto the bushy tail of an orange cat.
She covered her mouth to mute her surprised scream.
Another cat, a black-and-white one, watched from the open doorway. Shit. Sarah’s cat allergy. Emily was so distracted with the thought of bringing her friend into the lair of a cat lady that she needed a minute to realize the interior matched Ralkin’s house very closely. And there were the stairs to the basement.
Oh, no. The pattern on the lady’s vest—it was cats, too.
Sarah had several justifications for the horrified look on her face.
Focus.
Presumably, they wouldn’t hear anything she did during the freeze, but Emily still tiptoed to the basement. The place had been turned into one room, a pantry with shelves full of preserved products. Jars upon jars upon jars of pickled vegetables. Peppers, beets, onions … Emily walked through the shelves with a morbid fascination. She didn’t know what was creepier—this, or Ralkin’s lab. She stepped in something sticky and stopped in front of a jar holding a single, large, strangely deformed cucumber. Like a fetus preserved in formaldehyde. She shuddered. Fo-cus.
Given the location of the stairs, the best place to travel would be in the far right corner. That should put her in Ralkin’s lab by the table. Emily took out the watch, checked the time on her phone, then adjusted her prepared calculation. They’d given Ralkin ten days more to get his stuff done. They’d seen him exit the house only a few times. James had trailed him on two exits, confirming Ralkin had only gone to Boston Tech, presumably to do his day job. On one of the outings, James also saw him meet with Ross.
She double-checked the almonite bag with two extra barrels, then set off the watch. A blink later, she was in the lab, away from the creepy cucumber.
And also alone in the dark. Well, that’s what she got from showing in the lab outside its “working hours.” At least Ralkin would be sleeping, and she had all the time in the world to search this place and take what she needed. Along with finding out Ralkin’s schedule, James had also made progress with Ross: he found out the name of a man the police had found stabbed and washed ashore in the middle of June. They sent a message to Brayden, who’d check if the man had been, as they assumed, a former Watcher. This, and whatever useful she could grab from Ralkin, would help their case when they … did whatever nineteenth-century people did for justice. Emily hadn’t asked. Hanging? Guillotine?
Right now, her job was to provide information.
She treaded carefully until she found the light and turned it on. The contraption brewing the almonite was still on the table, but the handles were empty. No reason to panic. She searched the tables, the open drawers, phased once to try the locked cabinet. Okay, maybe a tiny reason to panic. Had he taken it away already? But James said he hadn’t seen Ralkin leave carrying anything.
The vial would be small.
Emily bit her lip. She’d find something else first; that would make it better already, and then she could return for the almonite. His notes. With renewed zest, she headed for the shelf carrying the books and folders. Which one exactly had it been? The blue one. Nope, sketches. Gray? She sifted through. Lots of writing, but not like the log she remembered. Another blue, red, red, brown … soon, she’d gone through the entire shelf.
But the one folder—the exact one she needed—was missing.
Well, shit.
She sat down for a minute to think it over, and realized, after ten seconds, that she didn’t have much to think about. Either it was here, or Ralkin had taken the almonite and the supporting evidence somewhere else.
Maybe it was staring her right in the face, and she missed it. Like that time when she forgot her sunglasses were on her head.
She threw herself into another search session. Drawer one, two, three. First cabinet. Second cabinet—one more phasing; it left her tired, but she regained her strength in a few minutes. Nothing she felt in the locked drawers resembled a vial or a folder.
Something did resemble a tiny human bone, but she decided to ignore that one.
Half an hour later, she collapsed on the chair and wiped her forehead.
They were too late. And she couldn’t try a day, two, three before—she’d been in past-Boston. She couldn’t pop in inside the house when she was already outside, snooping.
So much about her brilliant plan.
She took out the almonite bag and waved it around miserably. With one more look around the lab, hoping the almonite serum would pop in out of nowhere—it didn’t—she prepared her watch and walked over to the light switch.
She’d figure out something to do next. She had to—she couldn’t write to Will or Brayden with news of nothing. She would not be the weakest link in this family .
But for now, she turned out the light, clicked the watch, and admitted temporary defeat.