Page 61

CHAPTER 61

M y cellphone buzzed and I saw it was Max. “Did it work?”

“We bagged eight dogs,” Max said. “But Herc wasn’t with them.”

“Where the hell is he?”

“I don’t know,” Max said, “but I’m on my way back to town.”

“Oh shit,” Dottie exclaimed, pointing at one of the CCTV screens. A black SUV was parked in front of Oddities.

“When did that get there?” I demanded, chagrined that we’d been so focused on the drone recording.

Before Dottie answered, Hermione of all people came scuttling out of the shop and ran away down the street. I threw myself down the staircase and ran for Oddities. I reached the door to the shop and skidded to a halt.

It wasn’t Herc. It was Serena. Walking out with Poppy and Marley and Maggs. There was a look on her face that wasn’t hate or anger or even that cold, confident look she’d had the last time she was in here holding a gun. She had a gun, but it was down by her side, not pointed at anyone; an afterthought.

She was shattered.

“We told her we’d take her to Junior,” Poppy said.

“Joseph,” Serena said, but there was no force behind the word.

“Joseph,” Poppy said. “And then this is done.”

I thought for a second about what I’d do if somebody had just told me that Poppy was dead, had taken three bullets to the face, and was cold in a drawer somewhere. I could feel the grief clutching at the back of my throat just thinking about it. My screams would never have stopped?—

“Drop the gun,” I said to Serena.

I knew every evil instinct in her body rebelled against it, but whatever Poppy had said to her overruled that. She put it away in her coat.

“We’ve got this,” my daughter, beautifully alive and about to exorcise her demon, said. “You stay here, please.”

Then she walked past me and Serena followed her and Marley and Maggs out.

So I let them go.

And waited for Herc.