Page 9

CHAPTER NINE

I SHARED THE NARROW APARTMENT at the back of the third floor of the hotel with Ghaliya. It was merely a sitting room that ran along the back wall of that floor and two bedrooms in the attic space under the apex of the top roof. You reached both rooms by climbing up six steps.

Ghaliya was in love with the fairytale quaintness of the apartment. As we only slept in the apartment and ate in the dining room downstairs, I didn’t give it much thought, other than the apartment had far more floorspace than my old one in L.A.

And occasionally, I worried about what we’d do when Ghaliya’s child began to walk. But like many concerns I had about Ghaliya’s pregnancy, I shoved that worry out of my mind whenever I recalled it. It felt as though I would be tempting fate to try to plan for raising a healthy child here, when her entire pregnancy was a miracle of the longest odds. If Ghaliya delivered this baby, it would be in defiance of the medical diagnoses of two G.P.s and two specialists who had all assured her she was unlikely to ever conceive and certainly would never carry a child to term.

I didn’t want to sit. I walked the length of the sitting room while I waited, passing the many pictures and other framed memorabilia hanging on the wall. Nearly every frame hid a compartment built into the wall. I was still exploring what was in those compartments. I had discovered my mothers’ multi-volume grimoire, which was how I had learned she had been a witch and had spent her years here in Haigton developing her skills.

It was how I had learned that I was a witch—and those two nouns in the same sentence still felt awkward and unreal to me. That was probably why Trevalyan studied me with sad eyes. I was not a good student.

Broch slid into the room while I was at the far end where the kitchenette and old iron stove were located. He moved with complete silence, and when I turned, he was standing beside the wing chair.

I jumped a little, although I was getting used to the way he seemed to abruptly appear. I moved closer. “King hadn’t figured it out. The timing. He changed subjects when I laid it out.”

“Good. That means he’s not completely without morals,” Broch said. “We can use that.”

“They’re not going to follow up on the woman in the diner. I slipped it in while he was focused on something else. They have twenty witnesses who heard Calloway say it was Harper’s fault. That’s all they care about.”

“They’re not dropping their interest in Harper,” Broch said.

“No.” I frowned. “You heard them say that, while I was talking to King? What else did you hear?”

Broch’s smile was predatory. “They can’t decide if they like the man or hate him. He’s meticulous in his work, but his hotel room is full of fast-food wrappers and half-drunk coffee. And he’s a natural Sherlock; he picks up on details they miss, all the time. It drives them crazy. They bet on how many details he’ll spot that they fail to. And…he plays chess.”

“That doesn’t surprise me, given the rest,” I said.

“He plays himself. One move a week and he’ll spend the rest of the week thinking about the next move or researching it. He won’t let anyone see the board, either.”

“And that’s fascinating, and everything,” I lied, “but what about the investigation?”

“It’s always good to know your enemy.” Broch said, without rancor. “They talked as much about the case as they did about King while he was gone. The FBI took over from local law enforcement because King’s team have been trying to catch up with Calloway for years. They believe he was a serial killer who likes to make his victim’s remains disappear.”

“Wow…” I breathed.

Broch nodded. “The lack of bodies has made it difficult for them to catch up with Calloway. Plus, he was transient, and all over the country. He would return to New York frequently, but he would head out somewhere else just as frequently. They were tracking him primarily by reported disappearances, where nobody could be found.”

“On the surface, that does sound strange,” I admitted.

“It doesn’t sound strange at all, if you know he was a hunter,” Broch said. “That one fact makes all the difference. The FBI thought Calloway was elusive and clever.”

“You don’t think that?”

“I think that if a major law enforcement squad was tracking him, then he was a mediocre hunter at best. Harper would never have left such an obvious trail behind her.”

“The bodies that failed to turn up, the disappearances…they were all supernaturals?” I asked.

“I’m sure the FBI attributed to Calloway any unresolved disappearances where he happened to be in the area at the time. But some of those would have been nothing more than people quitting their lives abruptly and running off to start fresh somewhere else,” Broch said. “The others were certainly Calloway’s work.”

I rubbed my temple. “Will King give up on Harper now we’ve proved the timeline won’t fit?”

“Would you?” Broch said.

I weighed that up. “No,” I said at last. “There are too many unknowns that could shift everything and make it fit. King will wonder if I was lying about seeing Harper at breakfast and then at dinner. If he asks anyone else about it, and they say the same as me, he’ll start wondering if the whole town is conspiring to give her an alibi. Or maybe the time of death has been incorrectly reported. Or the body was put on ice for a while…or…no, there are too many factors that could completely change the picture, once they’re known. And Harper still looks like a perfect suspect.”

Broch nodded. “That’s how I see it, too. We have to talk to the witnesses. Find the woman who was talking to Calloway.”

“If the Feds can’t find her, what makes you think we can?”

“She’s a hunter, I just about guarantee it,” Broch said. “Calloway wouldn’t scream at a client. If she’s a hunter, we can find her.”

“He might scream at a client if he’s a mediocre hunter, the way you say.”

Broch nodded. “We have to find that woman. She’ll know what he was doing in Gouverneur, besides trying to find his way to Haigton.”

Broch spread his hands a little. “I can’t go. Harper can’t either.”

“The town will let me leave,” I said. “I don’t know why. I’ve been to Edwards a couple of times for supplies since the snow melted.” I’d had to use Olivia’s enormous 1980s Continental and had felt conspicuous the entire time. “Olivia can leave, too, but she won’t while Wim is sick. It has to be me.”

Broch let out a breath. “Yes,” he agreed, his voice low and heavy.

Harper will love that , I thought. “Let’s give Harper the news.”