Page 79 of Deadly Blooms (Psychic Unraveled #1)

“You have to trust me,” she continued, eyes never leaving mine. “Even with something as shady as this. I’m not going to turn you in. ”

She released my hand—not coldly, just… deliberately. Like she was making a point.

“I mean, Christ,” she added, a half-laugh under her breath, “we broke into the fucking morgue tonight. You’re clearly not the average by-the-book officer.”

Before I could respond, Derek perked up in his chair like a meerkat. “Whoa, buddy . You broke into the morgue ?”

His grin was infuriating. He looked like he’d just found his new favorite party story—and a decent bit of leverage while he was at it.

I shot him a glare. “Yes. Long story.”

Derek threw up his hands, his gaze darted the room. “I’ve got time.”

I ignored him and looked back to Maggie. She was still watching me—calculating. Just making sure I understood the terms.

I did.

God, I did .

“I do say,” Silas announced, leaving the couch and floating mid-air to the center of the attic, “you four are hardly inspiring confidence in this operation.” He folded his arms in judgmental disapproval.

“How do you expect to catch the villain if every scrap of evidence you collect is inadmissible in court?” His gaze darted between us. “It’s all tainted—illegally obtained, improperly handled. Utter chaos.”

“Uncle Silas, it’s all we’ve got right now,” Maggie said, trying to hold her ground. “There’s so much pointing to Portia, it’s?—”

“ Not my dear Portia again!” he snapped, voice heated. ‘I’ll hear none of it, my dear girl.”

And just like that he vanished—his form dissolving into a swirl of green smoke that spiraled to the ceiling.

“Uncle Silas, wait!” Maggie shouted. “I took pictures—invoices, weird ones!”

“Yes!” I jumped in. “And I saw the tire iron—the same kind used on Morty Planchette— in Portia’s garage! Silas, I know it’s hard, but you have to help us figure out if she really did this.

A low rumble echoed in the rafters.

“I will not!” His voice boomed back, more thunder than man.

Then Katie spoke, soft and firm, “Silas… don’t you want to be here to prove Maggie and Graham wrong? To clear Portia’s name the right way?”

Her eyes were gentle, but I saw the intention flicker beneath.

“No one else can do what you can,” she added, her voice becoming like silk. “You loved her. That’s why you’re the only one who can find the truth.”

She paused—just long enough.

“I’ll help you.”

Silas didn’t answer, but the temperature in the attic shifted. A flicker of light shimmered above the salt line. He was still listening. Katie pressed on. “Besides, Derek and I found some things over at Belvedere’s. And they might just take priority over Portia.”

“Alright, Katie, my dear,” Silas uttered as he reappeared in a swirl of green light, positioning himself regally at her side. “If you are willing to be my confidante, I shall remain present for this… charade —solely to preserve the dignity of my Portia.”

He gave Maggie a sideways glance, as if daring her to make a scene.

Maggie, to her credit, didn’t flinch.

“Uncle Silas,” she said respectfully, yet unwavering, “I’ll try my hardest to keep Portia’s dignity intact. But you need to prepare yourself. There may be things you’ll hear that aren’t very dignified at all.”

His brows lifted, insulted.

“I don’t want them to be true,” she continued, “just as much as you don’t. But sometimes… the people we love the hardest are the ones that hurt us the most.”

Silas’s posture stiffened, but it was the silence that said more.

Then he scoffed. “Your outlandish behavior with this irreverent officer—” he flicked a translucent finger my direction, “—is enough to make me doubt the integrity of this entire operation.”

I stepped forward, crossing my arms. “Oh, please , Silas. You’ve been a walking contradiction since Maggie got here.”

He turned to me slowly, eyes narrowed.

“Look at your little séance stunt with Katie,” I added. “Your dramatics with the aunts. Your constant hovering and dramatizing everything like it’s fucking Macbeth. Quite irreverent…” I placed a hand on my chest, mimicking him, “If I do say so myself.”

I huffed and leaned back slightly, letting it land.“Besides,” I added with a pointed smirk, “what would your dear Portia say about your little flirtations?”

That one did some damage.

Katie shifted uncomfortably beside him, shrinking a little in her seat, shame flickering across her face.

Silas said nothing.

And the room got very quiet.

Until—

“That is enough!” finally ripped from his lips with such force his entire green ghostly being glowed bright like it was some indicator of how pissed he was. “When this is over, I want you to call Ruby and Clover and have them unbind me from this house. I no longer wish to remain on this plane.”

Maggie flinched. I could tell Silas’s rejection cut her deeper than expected, but we didn’t have time to unpack that.

I stepped forward, taking command before the attic turned into a frenzied late night session with Dr. Phil.

“Maggie, show us the photos from tonight.”

She blinked once, her expression changing from hurt to focus.

Good.

She then nodded, pulled her phone from her purse, and brought up the photos.

“Derek, print them. And while you’re at it, dig up anything linking Happy Burger and Marble Bistro to Portia or Rocky Sorrentino.”

He quirked a brow.

“ Rocky’s involved?” Derek spun his chair around, “Oof. That explains a lot.” He started typing, working at a speed that made me think maybe a little of my possession rubbed off on him.

Maggie inched nervously toward Silas, holding out her phone like she was offering a peace treaty. “These are two invoices from tonight. Same timestamp, same items. But the prices—one’s jacked up. Way up.”

He squinted at the screen.

“Maybe the bistro undercharged the first one?” Katie offered.

“No, see—” Maggie tapped the screen. “The timestamp is identical. Down to the second. There’s no way the invoice was adjusted. That means someone cloned the order and manipulated the pricing.”

She handed the phone to Derek, who uploaded the images in seconds and sent them to the printer humming near the rig.

Silas made a dramatic show of crossing his arms like a brat before conjuring a pipe and chewing on the mouthpiece.

“That’s it?” He asked, puffing smoke with visible disdain. “A couple of suspicious receipts? Hardly a smoking gun.”

I bit back the urge to snap at him.God, he pissed me off. And technically I agreed with him. It wasn’t much. Just a crack. But when your only wall was made of glass, all it took was the right push to bring the whole thing down.

“Well,” Maggie said, “I also have the fact that I saw the tire iron that killed Morty Planchette.”

Silas sucked at his pipe, the smoke curling around his smug disbelief. “That’s all fine and well, my dear. But tell me—how exactly do you plan to deliver that information to the precinct? You expect the captain to believe you’ve had a premonition that led you to it?”

Maggie didn’t flinch, “No, of course not. But if we could find a way to get the cops to investigate the garage, they’d find it. I’m sure it still has traces of Morty somewhere on it.”

She sounded hopeful. Too hopeful.

I folded my arms, and stared at nothing. “We need more. Something official. Something dirty enough that they have to take a closer look.”

Silas—damn him—was right. We couldn’t walk into Nettles’ office and hand over a some tip from a ghost and a vibe. We needed a reason—a thread they could follow that didn’t trace back to our trespassing or pulling digital files we had no right to access.

“You said you found some journals of Belvedere’s?” I asked, eyes flicking to Derek. “What’s inside?”

He gestured toward a stack of at least ten journals of various sizes and types piled on the steamer trunk.

“All kinds of shit,” he said. “Bloodlines, rituals, diagrams…”

I grabbed the one on top and flipped it open, thumbing past pages of messy anatomical sketches—human forms sliced apart like meat diagrams.

“Flip to the end of that one,” Derek said.

I did—and immediately wished I hadn’t. “ Jesus Christ .”

The last page was a full-blown dissection map. Diamond-shaped incision. Heart, lungs, stomach—all removed with surgical precision. Organs labeled in a curling script like it was a fucking textbook.

“This is sick,” I grimaced, bile rising to my throat. “He’s gotta be our guy.”

“Not necessarily.” Derek rolled out from behind the desk, chair wheels squeaking across the wood. “How do you explain the bodies piling up after Belvedere died?”

“I can’t,” I admitted, staring down at the illustration. “But this matches the autopsy reports exactly.”

“We haven’t even made it through half of them yet,” Derek said. “But there’s enough here to ruin your appetite for life.”

A blur of green drifted into view over my shoulder.

“Right there,” Silas declared, voice practically gleeful. “This proves Portia’s innocence.”

Of course he’d latch onto that.

I didn’t have time to argue with Silas about Portia’s innocence. Hell, I wasn’t sure I believed it. But those journals—twisted as they were—might have actually been her saving grace.

“What did you find at the morgue?” Katie pinned the invoices to the crime board with precision, right next to Portia’s photo.

Maggie scooped Chester into her arms, scritching behind his ears as she started to pace. That cat had no idea he was being cuddled mid-homicide debrief.

“Well… this is where it gets weird,” she said. “And where Rocky comes in. Or at least, we think he does.”

I leaned against the edge of Derek’s desk, arms and legs crossed, watching as Maggie slipped into that strange trance she got into when she was piecing things together faster than the rest of us could keep up.

I couldn’t help but observe her, ever since the morgue, she’d been in full on sleuth mode and it was fucking adorable.