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“You know I don’t think this weekend is a good idea,” Detective Blackburn said to the four of them once he’d closed the door in the larger of the interrogation rooms.

“You mean the library play and escape room?” Tempest asked. “Cameron already told me you couldn’t say when the crime scene would be released.”

He nodded. “I told him that. However, I’m getting pressure to release the crime scene as quickly as I can. I’ve told Mr. Gray as well. Tickets to both the play and escape room are sold out, and people are even coming in from out of town for the summer stroll events, which is great for the local economy.”

“You have new information about whoever is trying to kill me?” Sanjay asked.

“I should ask you the same thing.” Blackburn crossed his arms. “I wanted to think I was wrong that you’d be interviewing my suspects—”

“Milton Silver lied about his occupation.” Sanjay crossed his arms to match Blackburn’s posture.

“What makes you think he’s not an accountant for small businesses?” Blackburn asked.

Sanjay’s shoulders slumped. “You knew that?”

“What did you think he did?”

“He makes himself sound like a rare books expert,” Tempest said.

Blackburn shrugged. “One of his clients is the Hidden Bookshop, so he probably knows more than all of us combined about rare books. Mr. Silver’s occupation isn’t your concern. You’ll do the most good for this investigation by leaving things to us.”

“So we can get back to work on rehearsing the play and getting the escape room set up again?” Tempest gave him her best attempt at an innocent smile. “We can move forward?”

“ If I determine it’s safe,” Blackburn said. “We’re done with forensics, but it depends on toxicology. If there’s no trace of poison from our tests in the escape room game, and if I can confirm one more thing, then I can release it.”

“What’s the other thing besides testing for poison?” Tempest asked.

“I can’t speak to that, aside from cautioning you to stop attempting to interrogate my witnesses and suspects.”

“Who are your suspects?” Sanjay asked.

“Your time would be better spent preparing for this weekend, not slowing down my investigation.”

“So you think it’s likely that forensics testing will be completed in time?” Ivy asked. “I didn’t know Hidden Creek had a lab that could get tests done so quickly.”

“We don’t have a lab at all,” Blackburn said. “It went to the county. Normally, it would be slow to get results—since test results aren’t as quick as they are on TV. But there’s an eager young guy who has dual MD/PhD degrees and wrote his dissertation on poisons, so he’s testing for all sorts of things.”

“Above and beyond his normal workload?” Tempest asked.

“Bingo. He’s fascinated with old poisons, so he’s the one who reached out to me. He heard about the case details, and they fascinated him. We did a video call early this morning, before he went into his office. He was at his house, and I saw a bookshelf that included books like A Is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie . Said he’d work all night tonight if it could give us some answers.”

“And you’ll release the house if he says it’s clean?” Gideon asked.

Blackburn sighed. “We’ll have to see what we’ve found by the time the test results come in.”

“Meaning that you’re closing in on the person trying to frame me or kill me?” Sanjay asked.

“Nobody is trying to frame you,” Blackburn said, “but until we’ve made an arrest, we can’t be entirely certain who the intended victim was, so I do advise you to be careful. Stop harassing suspects and let me get back to work.”

Sanjay stood up so hastily that the chair nearly toppled. “Happily.”

Tempest pushed him back down. “There’s something more Blackburn isn’t telling us.”

Detective Blackburn’s mouth ticked up into the hint of a smile. “About a hundred things. There’s a lot that goes into an investigation. I wish we’d known about the murder two nights ago, not just last night. We’d be in a much better position now.”

He opened the door for them, then paused. “One last thing. There’s a lot going on with the summer stroll coming up this weekend, so we can’t leave an officer watching Sanjay. Until we know what’s going on, you three are sticking with him, right?”

Tempest assured him they were.

Sanjay grumbled something under his breath that sounded like a complaint against “babysitters,” but Tempest noticed he was careful to walk in between them when they left the building.

“What do you all think?” Tempest asked as soon as they’d piled into Sanjay’s truck.

“That we should have searched the back before we got in,” Ivy said. “I’ve seen horror movies. I know how this works.”

“I’ll look.” Gideon hopped out and looked under the tarp. “Unless the killer is curled up where the spare tire should be, he’s not here.”

Sanjay’s eyes grew wide.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” muttered Gideon, but he checked for anyone rolled up like a spare tire. “All clear.”

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” Tempest said, “how about we finally eat this feast from my grandfather and make a real plan?”