Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Oh no. Not another one.
Declan
I was still a little dazed from Gideon kissing me again, so I’d stayed at the back of the group when we’d first entered Winston’s building. I needed my cheeks to cool down a little before everyone saw how red I must be.
Josh had never been much for public displays of affection, so I wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to react. Not that I was complaining. I liked it. A lot. In fact, I suspected it would be incredibly easy to fall for Gideon. I’d only just met him, but I felt like I was well on my way already.
But we had a murder to investigate. Winston’s killer needed to be caught.
After that, Gideon and I could explore whether this spark between us could develop into something more.
When we first stepped inside, some of the others had been muttering about how we were missing something.
Which was true. If we weren’t, then we’d know who the killer was.
But I also wondered if my supposed magical baking had triggered a deeper awareness. Wouldn’t that be cool?
And then suddenly everyone stopped talking and walking.
“Why is everyone standing in the storage room?” I asked, pushing through.
Last time, I’d been too shocked by Winston’s dead body to pay any attention to the crime scene. I had questions I needed answers to. I wasn’t going to get them standing in here.
“Declan, stop,” Gideon said.
But it was too late. I’d stumbled to the front of the group and finally figured out what had everyone spooked.
“Oh no. Not another one.” I stared at Jim—or, rather, at Jim’s very dead body.
In many ways, Jim looked a lot like he had when we’d spoken to him this morning. He was wearing the same clothes. His face was frozen in what appeared to be the same irritated frown he’d worn earlier, too. But the blade sticking out of his chest, right up to its ornate hilt? That was new.
Unlike with Winston’s body, this time there was blood.
I closed my eyes for a minute. When I opened them, he was still there. Still dead.
“How is he dead?” I whispered, unable to keep my thoughts to myself. “He’s the murderer.”
“Declan, are you okay?” Gideon asked. He cupped my elbow in his hand, as if he meant to steer me away. “Maybe we should call Grady from Elwood’s.”
“I’m okay, I think. But we can’t leave yet. We need to look around before the police get here.”
Last time, I squandered my opportunity to investigate the crime scene. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Tulip stepped up beside me.
“Well, good riddance,” she muttered. “But I still want to drag him to my lake. Can I have him?” She stared unblinkingly at me.
“Uh…” Why was she asking me? Was it because she knew everyone else would tell her no and wanted to try her luck with the newbie?
“Hazel can wrap him up so he’s easier to move.”
Hazel cleared her throat and reached out with one of her skinny spider legs to pat Tulip on the back. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, dear. You don’t want a dead body cluttering up your pond, do you?”
“So, I can’t have him?” Tulip pressed.
“No.” I shook my head. “And if someone’s killed him, he must not be the murderer. We were wrong.”
Tulip crossed her arms over her chest and stomped her foot. It made a little splashing sound. Fun fact: when Tulip was agitated, she shed water more quickly. I’d need to remember to stock water bottles for her.
“Oh man,” Sandy said as he shoved the last of his cookie in his mouth. “The smell of blood does not go with chocolate.”
Gideon studied Mellgren. “You okay?”
Mellgren dabbed at his nose with a handkerchief. “I’m in control.”
“Why wouldn’t he be?” I whispered to Sandy.
“He abstains from drinking blood, but he’s still a vampire. Sometimes being around a lot of blood can send them into bloodlust.”
Oh. Yeah. That wasn’t good. I stepped closer to Gideon. He smiled down at me and put his arm around my back, like he was pleased I’d sought protection from him.
“Declan has a point. The police have their methods, but they aren’t us,” Gideon said. “If you aren’t too upset by this discovery, let’s take a few minutes to look around. We shouldn’t disturb the crime scene, but try to take note of what you can see from where you are standing.”
Mellgren was paler than he had been before. “I’ll step out and call Grady.”
“Of course.” Declan nodded. Getting the vampire away from the blood sounded like an excellent idea.
“Before I go…” The vampire held his handkerchief under his nose, but it didn’t muffle his words. “The color of the blood tells me the body has been here for several hours. The heat and the volume of blood are both factors, but this is definitely not a fresh kill.”
“How can you tell?”
“Experience. I wasn’t always vegan.”
His answer made me wish I hadn’t asked. Then he moved to the door so quickly that he was a blur.
“I’ll go check on him,” Elwood said.
“Are you sure that’s safe?”
Elwood rolled his eyes at me and didn’t bother answering before following the vampire out the door.
“Elwood knows what he’s doing,” Gideon assured me.
I hoped he was right.
That left six of us—or seven with Eugene—to get whatever answers we could before the police arrived. I glanced around the site. I sort of wanted to pull out my phone and take a video, but that seemed terribly inappropriate. But there was so much in here, I doubted I’d remember it all.
The dust on the floor was disturbed, but that could’ve been from the forensics teams who’d been working here earlier.
There were stacks of wood and drywall against the far wall.
Buckets of screws and nails were stacked beside them.
Tools were strewn everywhere. It’d be difficult for any of us to figure out if anything was missing, but Jim’s crew should know.
If the police didn’t talk to them, we should.
“There’s a lot of stuff in here. Were there any security measures? Other than the lock?” I asked.
We all looked around.
Sandy made an obvious show of looking up and down and all around. “I don’t see anything.”
“Nor do I,” Hazel said.
Perhaps that was another thing we could ask Jim’s crew.
Gideon inhaled. “There’s the smell of coffee.”
“That’s probably from the coffee I dropped when we found Winston.”
He sniffed again. “Maybe. But it’s stronger than I would’ve expected.”
“It was a dark roast with a double shot of espresso from Lily’s,” I reminded him.
He grudgingly nodded. “Fair point. Anyone else have anything?”
“I don’t think any of Winston’s family would waste that much blood or use a knife.” Tulip tapped her finger against her chin. “So, I don’t think this is a revenge killing.”
“That’s probably true,” Az agreed. “And I don’t sense any dark magic at play.”
“Um, Gid? I think Eugene has something.” Sandy pointed to a corner where a shadow was vibrating.
We shuffled around the perimeter of the room to where Eugene was quivering. Like much of the construction site, the drywall in this corner had been ripped away to expose the studs behind.
I didn’t see anything of note, but Hazel squealed. “Oh, what’s this?”
She plucked something off a nail.
“What is it?” Gideon asked.
She passed it to Gideon.
I pulled my glasses off—they were for distance, not anything close—and leaned in to study the bright purple fibers in Gideon’s palm. “Maybe someone got their sweater caught on the nail?”
“I thought it was yarn at first,” Hazel said, “but I think it is more like a faux fur.”
“Maybe,” Gideon agreed.
I put my glasses back on and glanced toward where Hazel had found the fibers. Nothing obvious stood out. It was perhaps a tad messier with construction debris than the rest of the space, but that was probably because Winston had told Jim to stop in the middle of a task.
“It’s quite far from the body.” Az’s comment had us all turning our attention back to Jim. “It seems unlikely that this is connected to his murder.”
Flashing lights streamed through the front window. The police were here, which meant our time was up.
“Is that Jim’s van out on the street?” I hadn’t noticed it before, but the red and blue police lights were bouncing off the white panels. “I wonder if he was attacked when he came back for his tools.”
That was the last observation any of us made for the next several hours.
Grady had separated us to take our statements.
He asked me some routine questions, but I got the impression he didn’t think any of us were the murderers.
He seemed more perplexed by having another body to deal with than anything else.
I was one of the last to be interviewed. When I stepped into the alley to return to The Mystic Menagerie, I was pleased to find Gideon waiting for me.
“I thought I’d walk you back.”
I glanced at the door to Elwood’s building. It was right there, only a handful of steps away. “Um, okay.”
“How are you doing?” he asked as we walked slowly, so very slowly, toward Elwood’s little garden at the back of his property.
The sun had set now, so we were bathed in moonlight and the faint glow of a security light over Elwood’s door.
The heady perfume of roses and lavender sweetened the air.
A delicate plant with shimmering silver leaves and delicate white flowers, reminding me that beautiful things existed in the world.
The soft burbling sound of a bird in a nearby nest filled the quiet as I searched for the right words.
I considered brushing off Gideon’s question, but I decided to be honest instead.
“I think I’m still processing everything. It was a bit of a shock to find another body.” I swallowed as the image of all that blood resurfaced in my mind’s eye. I hoped that image didn’t follow me into my dreams tonight. “But it was worse for all of you. You knew Jim and Winston.”
“Ravenstone will be hurting for a long while after this. Death is never easy, but…” His words trailed off.
“Murder is worse.” I finished for him.