7. Chapter 7
We waited in the cafe across the street, sipping piping hot pumpkin spice steamers and watching for Mr. McFarland to close down the store.
Jack lounged in the crimson faux leather booth, his expression completely unbothered.
And yet the side of his hair was mussed.
Mussed by my hand running through it as we’d kissed.
I took a bracing breath and told myself to cool it.
We had a job to do. I shifted my eyes from Jack’s ridiculously handsome face to the street, where Mr. McFarland was locking up.
When he drove away in his black sedan, Jack paid the tab.
My heels clicked noisily on the ground as we left the restaurant and crossed the street, dodging the old coal chutes that were built into the sidewalk.
We paused at the entrance to the alley that ran behind The Trinket Trove and the other buildings on the block, and I pulled my hair back into a knot at the nape of my neck. “Only you would wear heels to break into a building, Vixen.”
I pulled a pair of basic black tennis shoes from my purse with a flourish and gripped Jack by the shoulder for balance as I slipped off one heel.
He checked the back alley for cameras. “Why didn’t you just wear reasonable shoes in the first place?”
I scoffed. “Everyone would know I was up to something if I were in a cafe wearing shoes like that. And don’t worry about the cameras, I’ll cast an illusion of an empty alleyway.”
“Excellent. I assume you also have a way to get us into the building?”
I squeezed his firm trapezius as I switched feet and slipped on my other shoe. “Isn’t lock picking on your list of qualifications?”
“I’m a bodyguard, not a criminal.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
He folded his arms across his chest. “It’s a yes. But how did you know that?”
“Sydney told me.”
“Traitor,” he muttered under his breath.
I handed him the set of lock picks I’d stashed in my bag and watched him get to work. In less than a minute, the door clicked open.
“Here’s the potential flaw in my plan,” I said. “I’m guessing that Mr. McFarland is too cheap to pay for an alarm system. But if I’m wrong…”
“Then we run away as fast as we can?”
“Exactly.”
Jack entered the building first and I followed closely behind, breathing a sigh of relief when we didn’t hear the beep of an alarm. I flipped a switch, flooding the room with light.
Jack quickly flipped it off again. “Someone will see.”
“Good point.” I cast an illusion on the outside of the building to make it look dark. “Okay, we’re good now.”
“How long can you keep those illusions up?”
“About fifteen minutes, after that I’ll have to concentrate a lot harder. So we’d better find some dirt on this guy fast.”
“Why are you so sure that he’s the killer?”
“One, he was murderously angry that I bought the mirror he didn’t want to sell me. And two, I don’t like him.”
Jack bit back a smile. “Sounds reasonable. I’m still not sure what we’re looking for.”
“Some sort of evidence we can take to the police to prove that he’s the one who tried to kill me. If we could find that missing Celtic knot, that would tie him back to the scene of the crime.” I formed an image of the knot in my cupped hands.
He looked blankly from my face to my outstretched hands and back again. “Sorry, I have the same ability as my sister—I see right through illusions.”
A jolt of mortification shot through my body.
That meant he’d seen my bare face and my unguarded expressions this whole time.
I covered my flaming cheeks with both hands.
I’d known there were high fae who could see through illusions, but I’d never encountered one before Sydney.
I wanted to curl up under McFarland’s desk and hide.
Jack gently tugged my hands away from my face. “You don’t need to hide from me, Caroline.”
I ducked past him and made my way to Mr. McFarland’s office. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve never glamoured myself around you,” I lied.
“Your flaming cheeks would suggest otherwise.”
We didn’t have time for me to get embarrassed, so I ignored him and plopped down on a suede rolling chair behind the desk, leafing through papers for anything that might be incriminating.
When I didn’t find anything promising, I felt along the bottom of the desk for secret compartments but came up blank.
“You’re surprisingly good at this,” Jack said. “Is this a regular thing for you—getting yourself into dangerous situations?”
“Contrary to the day I put you through, no.” I moved to a filing cabinet in the corner of the room. “I’m usually quite concerned with my own self-preservation.”
He smirked. “But having a strong, capable bodyguard has emboldened you?”
“Something like that.” I pulled out a ledger and scanned the names and amounts. “I guess I don’t have as much to lose as I used to.”
“Because you were disowned?”
I shrugged. “That among other things.”
“That sucks,” he said. “But you’ve still got a whole lot going for you.”
“Do I?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re gorgeous.”
I laughed, expecting he’d join in, but his expression turned serious.
“You’re talented and funny and kind. And brave. I wouldn’t have jumped off that ship for a purse, no matter how valuable it was.”
“You jumped in for me.”
“Yes, I did.”
I shut the last drawer, wincing a little as it squeaked. “Let’s check the backroom. That’s where I found the mirror he wanted back so badly he would kill for it.”
“Have you told that theory to the police?”
“No, I wouldn’t want to risk them confiscating it. That mirror belongs at Lady Catherine’s house.”
He didn’t argue as he followed me to the back of the store, his eyes constantly scanning the room for potential dangers.
Antique pieces filled the backroom, from a beautiful ebony clock, to a silver tea set, to a bed frame with a sticky note attached, which read, Enchanted to make you fall asleep within a minute .
I walked through the inventory, running my fingers gently over the pieces.
“Here’s something,” Jack called from across the room, holding up a blue book.
I hurried over and thumbed through the pages. It was a ledger, similar to the one in his office, but this list had a column in it that the other did not— magical use . I scanned the columns for a mention of the mirror. There it was, the seventy-sixth entry— Brass Mirror. Magical use: Divination.
Jack whistled low. “No wonder he wanted the mirror back so badly. It’s not just any mirror. It’s magical.”
When I’d first seen the mirror, I’d glimpsed Winston’s reflection on its surface.
If this really was a magic mirror, why had it shown me him ?
Was it a warning? Or a reminder of my biggest mistake?
I should never have let myself fall in love with him—and I should be sure not to let myself fall for Jack, either.
At the end of the day, he was here for the paycheck.
Shoving those unhelpful thoughts aside, I focused on the ledger. In the margin next to the mirror, one word was written in slanted writing: missing .
I straightened. “If this mirror was so valuable to McFarland, he wouldn’t have wanted to kill me out of revenge—that would make it harder for him to get it back. Maybe he wasn’t the killer after all. But who else would want to kill me?”
Jack pursed his lips. “What if we’ve been looking at this all wrong? What if it isn’t about you?”
“Someone who looks exactly like me gets killed in my home. Kinda seems like it’s about me.”
“I get why you’d think that—I thought the same thing. But what if the girl who died was the intended target all along?”
A wave of relief shot through my body. “You’re right, we assumed that the killer was after me because Charles said so. But maybe I wasn’t the intended victim after all.”
Jack put the ledger back where he’d found it. “If we’ve got everything we need, we should get out of here.”
If I wasn’t the target, that meant I was safe. That meant… my heart sank. That meant I didn’t need Jack anymore. The thought had probably already occurred to him.
“Maybe you’re off the hook.” My voice came out higher than I intended.
Jack folded his arms across his chest. “Off the hook for what?”
“Well, if I wasn’t the target, I’m not really in danger, am I? So I don’t need a bodyguard.” I flipped off the light switch and we headed back out to the alley.
He shook his head. “We don’t know for sure that you weren’t the target, so you still need protecting. Besides, you can’t get rid of me now. I’m invested.”
I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. “I told you not to—”
“I’m invested in the murder . It would be cruel to kick me off the case now.”
I pretended to consider it. “Fine.” I looked away so he wouldn’t see how relieved I was at the fact that he was going to stay, at least until we caught the killer.
Chill gusts of wind assailed us when we got back to the street, so I walked closely next to Jack, crunching through dry leaves that blew across our path all the way to the car.
“What’s our next step?” Jack asked on the drive back to Netherfield.
“We need to find out who this girl was and why someone might have wanted her dead.”