tops or headbands—it was hard to tell.
“Well, it doesn’t look like she’s missing any shirts, and there wasn’t a sweater in the fireplace.” I bit my lip and went to the closet, pulling back double doors to expose the second-largest clothing collection (Nina’s being the first) that I had ever seen outside of a retail establishment. One whole section was a sea of blues—four navy jumpers, four regulation plaid skirts, every manner of high school booster wear, and the whole thing repeating in a sea of greys. I groaned.
“For all we know this could be every uniform she has and the one in the fireplace could be someone else’s, or this is all she has minus one.” I nodded in the general direction of the dining room.
“The one in the fireplace was a size two. At least the skirt part.”
“Yeah,” I said, glad my snarled lip was hidden amongst the plaid. “Just like mine.”
“Wait,” Will said, pausing. “Did you say she’s short a sweater?”
I shrugged. “There was only one in there. So, maybe yes, maybe no.”
“Didn’t your little stinky friend find—”
My eyes widened. “A sweater. Someone had tried to flush a sweater down the toilet.” I paused, my previous revelation falling flat. “Why would someone try to flush a sweater down the toilet?”
Will pursed his lips. “You didn’t think to ask that at the time?”
“Well, neither did you.”
He held his hands up in obvious surrender. “Touche.”
Alex came up the stairs and knocked on the doorframe. I stiffened when I saw him, immediately feeling the annoyance well up inside of me.
“We’re still working in here,” I said, going into my best
He crossed the room to me and held out a Ziploc evidence bag. “Do you recognize this?”
I took the bag, tentatively, somehow certain it was a trap. His fingertips brushed mine and I shuddered—I had never remembered his hands being so cold. When I looked up at him, I realized just how tired he looked— heavy bags under his eyes made the crystal blue of his irises seem washed out and dull. The usually rosy skin over his cheeks seemed papery and sallow. His lips were dry and cracked.
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
Alex just shook the bag in my palm. I snapped my attention to it.
“It’s a Lock and Key pin,” I said. “Where did you get this?”
“Romero found it. It was attached to the collar of the shirt in the fireplace.”
Will and I exchanged a glance. “Fallon wasn’t in Lock and Key,” I said. “But Kayleigh was.”
“Actually . . .” Both Alex and I looked to where Will was standing. A floor-to-ceiling bulletin board was in front of him. He plucked a single photo from the collage and held it out to me. I took it, and everything inside me stopped. “This is Lock and Key Club. From this year.”
“And Fallon’s in it.” Will squinted at the photo. “Alyssa, Kayleigh—that Miranda bird. And the advisor there, isn’t that the geezer from the principal’s office?”
“Heddy’s not a geezer. And Miranda told me she wasn’t in the club.” A cold stripe of fear shot down my spine. “The uniform downstairs could be hers. Fallon and she were constantly at each other’s throats.”
“I’m going to go downstairs to check on the girl.”
“Ask her where Bud is.”
Alex’s lips went into a pale straight line. “Lawson . . .”
“Do it, Alex. I don’t care if he was alibied or not. Fallon is in on this and she’ll know where Bud Hastings is.”
Alex eyed me. We were face to face, but I had my shoulders thrown back, my fists on hips, and was ready to shut down anyone who tried to placate me.
“You want us to go after Hastings on a hunch?”
“You want two girls to die because you were too proud to follow a hunch?”
I squared off my hips and kept Alex’s gaze. Finally, he broke. “Yeah. Okay.”
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket while Alex left Will and me alone in the bedroom.
Will’s eyes narrowed as he considered. “So you think Fallon did this? She made the pentagram, got nervous when the candle caught the drapes, then called the police?”
“She didn’t have to make the fire to toss in Miranda’s uniform.”
I dialed Miranda’s number and listened as it rang repeatedly. I frowned, hung up, and tried Vlad.
“Direct to voice mail.”
Will’s eyes locked mine. For the first time, there was real concern in them. “You can’t find Miranda?”
“Let me try Nina. I’m sure she’s talked to Vlad.”
Nina picked up on the second ring.
“Hey, it’s me. Is Vlad there?”
“I haven’t seen him all night. Your little friend came back though.”
My heart stopped. “Miranda, really? Is she there? Let me talk to her.”
“She’s not here anymore. She just forgot a coat or something and took off.”
“Without Vlad?”
“She said he peeled off for Poe’s or something. She got in a car downstairs. Some guy was driving, but it wasn’t Vlad. Although the car looked like something from our era.” She gave a small, snorting chuckle at her own joke. “Anyway, I wasn’t completely paying attention because I was on the phone with Scorsese’s assistant.”
“Wait—Martin Scorsese’s assistant?”
Because even in the midst of peril, I could be not only horny, but starstruck.
“No, Neil Scorsese. He runs the soundstage down by the Presidio. Werevamp. Nice guy.”
“Look, if either Miranda or Vlad come back, keep them there.” I hung up my phone.
“Miranda took off with some guy who wasn’t Vlad.”
“Young love burns fast and hot, but fades fast.”
“Nina said the car was old.” My skin started to prickle. “What if the guy was Janitor Bud?”
“So, Fallon is working in cahoots with this janitor bloke. She sets fire to her own house so the police are tied up here, so Bud can go out and get Miranda?” Will shook his head. “Something’s not adding up. The police had already cleared Bud.”
I paced, stringing a piece of hair around my index finger. “Maybe she sent Bud out to get Miranda while she set up the sacrificial altar downstairs. She really did knock over a candle and a neighbor called the police and fire department. She probably heard the sirens and intercepted Bud.”
“Kind of a stretch. What about Alyssa and Kayleigh? Why would he—or even Fallon—suddenly start collecting the girls rather than killing them? It can’t be easy to hide one teenage girl, let alone three.”
“Remember what Vlad said? Maybe he just hasn’t found the right girl.”
“But to deal with three?”
My stomach was leaded and my saliva bitter. “We don’t know that he hasn’t killed the other girls yet.”
I took the stairs two at a time, Will following close behind. I pushed the front door open only to see the taillights of the ambulance fading into the darkness, the squad cars falling into line behind that. Alex was leaning into the open window of a squad car, and Fallon was gone.
“Alex! Alex, where’s Fallon?”
Alex looked around as if just noticing his surroundings. “We were able to reach her mother. She gave permission for the girl to go with the neighbor.”
My heart started to thud.
“Which neighbor?”
“I’m not sure. Wasn’t my jurisdiction. What’s going on?”
“She’s the one you’re looking for,” Will spat.
Alex straightened, his eyes darkening. “Lawson, you need evidence to accuse someone of a crime. Especially of a crime like this.”
My frustration and anger were reaching boiling points. “I know. Bud Hastings has an alibi, and there is absolutely no reason that you should go after Fallon except for the fact that she is in on this. She and Bud are partners. She lures the girls, he carves them up in an attempt to open some portal or do some kind of witchcraft.
