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Tempest’s dad departed for the crisis job site, but only after checking that Ash and Morag were home. Tempest’s friends arrived as he was pulling out of the gate—as did the patrol car that was following Sanjay. Darius knew as well as Tempest did that Sanjay wasn’t a killer, so he welcomed the police presence since it also meant someone was keeping an eye on them.

Ivy wasn’t due to be at work at the Locked Room Library until that afternoon, and neither Tempest nor Gideon was needed on a job site that morning, so the friends had decided to regroup in case a good night’s sleep had helped shake loose any ideas.

Grandpa Ash insisted on serving a huge spread of breakfast options on the tree house deck for Tempest, Gideon, Sanjay, and Ivy, before mumbling something vague about a “lead” that he and Morag needed to follow up on. Ash wouldn’t say more about it, instead simply distracting them with food—savory dosa pancakes with half a dozen fillings to choose from. It worked—Tempest’s grandparents slipped out of the house before she could interrogate them further.

It was now half an hour later. Tempest, her three friends, and Abracadabra had filled up on a big breakfast to fuel their brain cells. Ash never liked Abra to feel left out, so he’d prepared a basket of hay with several leaves of lettuce so the rabbit could join the social breakfast. The bunny was now napping on the deck. Something Tempest wished she had time to do.

“Was everyone so busy stuffing themselves silly that you didn’t have time to share any brilliant ideas you had in the night?” Sanjay patted his lips with a handkerchief, which vanished a second later. “Now’s the time to speak up.”

“Want to head to the turret?” Gideon asked.

“We’re fine here on the deck,” said Tempest. “The alarm will sound if anyone tries to get through the gate or over the fence.” With the fencing around the property that Darius had installed after the danger last year, Tempest wasn’t concerned about anyone eavesdropping—or worse.

Her phone buzzed with a text message.

“News about the case?” Sanjay asked. Gideon and Ivy looked at her expectantly as well.

“It’s my grandfather,” said Tempest. “But not with news about whatever he and Grannie Mor are up to. He wanted to make sure I knew there’s enough leftovers in the fridge for all of us for lunch.”

“How can he possibly imagine we need more food?” Gideon said. “This blackberry cobbler might be even better than my mom’s blackberry tart. But don’t tell her I said that.”

“Ivy needs another coffee.” Sanjay waved his hand in front of her face and made a flower appear from thin air. Tempest recognized it as a snapdragon from the secret garden behind the house. But Ivy didn’t even notice.

“Earth to Ivy.” Tempest took the empty mug from her hands.

“What? Oh. Sorry.” Ivy rubbed her eyes. “I didn’t sleep well.”

“More coffee coming up.” Tempest stepped inside the open sliding door to refresh Ivy’s coffee, but she could still hear everything out on the deck.

“It’s only natural,” said Gideon. “We saw a dead body last night.”

“It’s not only that.” Ivy yawned. “I was following up on some apartment leads after I got home. You all know I have to move out of my apartment by the end of the month, and it’s been a nightmare apartment-hunting. Nearly everything is out of my budget, anything decent that’s not out of my price range is rented immediately, and a bunch of landlords won’t even rent to me because I have two part-time jobs instead of a stable full-time job.”

Tempest stepped back outside and handed Ivy a steaming mug. “You know the guest room here is yours for as long as you need it.”

Ivy gave her an appreciative smile. “Your dad told me he already built an extra bookcase for all my books. But I can’t help feeling like I’m moving backward if I can’t figure this out.”

Tempest winced. “You do realize you just said that to the person currently residing in her childhood bedroom.”

Ivy’s cheeks turned pink. “It’s not the same. You’re working on building your own home. It’ll be on the same property, but your own place.”

“A luxury I won’t have as soon as I’m thrown in jail,” Sanjay cut in.

“You’re not going to jail,” Tempest insisted.

“It’s prison , anyway,” Ivy added. “Murderers go to prison. Not jail.”

Sanjay’s eyes bulged.

“Who wants the last piece of blackberry cobbler?” Gideon said quickly, holding up the nearly empty platter.

“The peacemaker,” Sanjay grumbled. “This might be my last meal, so I’ll take it.”

Tempest rolled her eyes. “Nobody sitting at this table is going to jail—or prison.”

“You and Ivy had some good ideas last night,” Gideon said.

“They didn’t hold up.” Sanjay glared at Gideon. “So what good does that do us? I don’t hear anyone sharing brilliant new ideas.”

“Hey, at least they’re trying to help,” Gideon said, “rather than having a pity party for themselves.”

“I’m not—” Sanjay began through a mouthful of cobbler.

“You totally are,” Tempest cut in. “But I get it. I’d feel weirded out if a police car were following me around.”

“Your grandparents are right that I don’t think this is about a rare book,” Gideon said. “I would have noticed if anyone was rifling through the books at Gray House. Even in that garage with books piled everywhere.”

“You’re not one of those strange people with a photographic memory, are you?” Sanjay asked.

Gideon shook his head. “I can’t recite a list of the thousands of books, or if one book had been removed from a bookcase, but I mentioned the garage because those books aren’t on shelves. They’re in piles. You can’t remove a book in a towering stack of books without disturbing the pile. That, I would notice.”

“I don’t like it that we still don’t know what happened with the break-in at the Locked Room Library last week.” Sanjay gestured with his fork, losing a bite of cobbler in the process.

“Enid is involved in both libraries with strange crimes within a week of each other,” Tempest said as she handed Sanjay a napkin. With his snippy comments, he was acting so much like a child that he was even eating like one.

“I don’t think Enid is involved,” Ivy said.

“But we’re missing something,” said Tempest.

“Clearly,” said Sanjay. “We’re missing a lot of things.”

“Isn’t this when you normally pull a dozen classic mystery novels from the shelves of the library and tell us what we can learn from them?” Tempest asked Ivy.

Ivy grinned. “Already planning on doing that later today while I’m at work at the library. I’d be looking through books this morning if Gray House wasn’t a crime scene.”

“We need to do something more to investigate, like your grandparents are doing,” said Sanjay. “I’m the one who’s going to be thrown in jail—I mean, prison —if we don’t find the real killer.”

“The fact that you disappeared off camera for a few minutes isn’t enough to convict you,” Tempest pointed out.

“But I was also the one who was secretly working with Lucas the day before! Phone records will show I was texting with him all day.” Sanjay gripped his bowler hat. “Do you think they’ll be looking at my phone records?”

“I’m sure they are. Why? Are you worried about them seeing something in there?”

“Well, no.” He scowled. “But it just feels so invasive. Especially when I know they’re looking for any reason to arrest me.”

“This is Detective Blackburn,” said Tempest. “I’d be a lot more worried if it was someone else.”

“The man put a tail on me, Tempest. He thinks I’m guilty.”

“He’s careful,” Tempest admitted, but she didn’t vocalize what else was on her mind. Why was Blackburn trailing Sanjay? What else did the detective know that he wasn’t telling them? “But we should still do what we can on our end.”

“How can we help?” Gideon asked.

“Aren’t you leaving for France?” Sanjay asked him.

“I’ve got three more days. I can’t think of a better way to spend them than helping with this.”

Tempest smiled at him. It was just like Gideon. She knew that as soon as he got to France, he’d be fully present. But now? Instead of being apprehensive or preparing for a long list of unknowns, he was there for them.

She looked between the two men. They were so different from each other, but had some superficial similarities, both in personality and appearance. Gideon and Sanjay were both incredibly talented and took great care in their creative professions, and they were two of the most loyal friends she’d ever had the good fortune to know. She didn’t know if she deserved it, but she knew they’d follow her to the ends of the earth if she needed help.

But it was their physical attributes that she was interested in right now. They both had thick black hair, though Gideon’s was a bit longer since he never thought about getting a haircut, whereas Sanjay had a recurring appointment with his barber. Sanjay was clearly of Indian heritage and Gideon was ethnically ambiguous, so you wouldn’t necessarily know his mom was French and his dad Filipino. Gideon’s frame was smaller and his face more angular. But from a distance…

“I’ve got a job for you,” Tempest said to Gideon, before turning to Sanjay. “Give Gideon your bowler hat.”

Sanjay clutched the hat close to his chest.

“Just for today,” Tempest clarified.

“You can’t be serious. You want me to loan Gideon my hat? My hat ?”

Tempest snatched the bowler hat from his grip. “Do you want to shake your tail or not?”