Arkady reached out to pat his back, then jammed his hand in his pocket instead.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” I said. “We had no idea how far-reaching Chariot was.”
We still didn’t. Sure, we had a general understanding of how they operated, but we didn’t know the players or the precise scope of their range. To all appearances, Tatiana had been a leader in her field with a trustworthy reputation. Literally anyone could be one of them. How did I protect myself and watch my friends’ backs when I didn’t even know where to look?
“Tell me about the brother,” Miles said.
“Yevgeny Petrov.” I filled them in on my first meeting with Birthmark Man, up to and including my visit with Sergeant Tremblay. When I finished, I frowned at the body.
“What?” Miles said.
“I can’t get past the fact that there weren’t any wards on this place,” I said. “Whoever shot her just waltzed in and judging from the angle of the body, caught her coming out of either one of the bedrooms or the office. She’s a Weaver. Her brother worked for Chariot and she likely did too. Did she really trust them so unconditionally?”
“Not everyone has honed your levels of suspicion,” Arkady said.
“It’s common sense when you work for the bad guys,” I said. “Villains aren’t known for their undying loyalty.”
“You work for the bad guys, too,” Miles said. “From her perspective. Hell, you are the bad guy. Yet, you’ve taken on a team. How do you know one of them won’t stab you in the back?”
“As if I need a knife,” Arkady sniffed.
“Could you not make a joke, just once?” Miles said.
Arkady rolled his eyes. “Ooh, right. The commandment according to Berenbaum. Thou shalt not make light of anything lest anyone mistake it for thee not taking thine job seriously enough.”
Their bickering had been an interesting glimpse into their current dynamic for the first minute. Now I was over it. “Back to Chariot.”
“Chariot believes in the rightness of their actions every bit as much as you do,” Miles said. “Forget that for a second and it’ll be your body we find.”
“Please. Mansplain the dangers to me. My point that Tatiana should have kept her guard up stands. Her brother Yevgeny was murdered. She should have been on high alert.”
“So let’s find out why she wasn’t,” Arkady said.
After a half-hearted search of the small bathroom, Miles and Arkady opted for the guest bedroom where Yevgeny had been staying, while I searched Tatiana’s room.
“It’s a bust in here,” I said.
A deafening clang rang out.
I sprinted into the guest room. Arkady stood half in the closet, bashing in a safe door with heavy swings of his now-stone fists. I stayed behind Miles who was a very handy shield until the door crumpled entirely, allowing Arkady access.
“And you were worried about me contaminating the scene?” I shoved Miles.
He started as the safe’s metal keypad fell onto the ground. “The homicide cops will either think robbery was the motive or that this was a red herring.”
“Not the point, dude. I’m a trained professional and this is just… not. At least concede I was right to search.”
“Depends on what we find.” Man, this guy wouldn’t give me an inch.
Arkady’s magic fists returned to normal. He reached into the safe and pulled out a camera. “Yevgeny, you perv,” he said, scrolling through frames.
Miles and I crowded around him and I gasped. They were photos of my Jezebel predecessor, Gavriella Behar, and her former workplace, the Star Lounge, including the placement of security cameras and the back door from various angles of the parking lot.
“Gavriella was kidnapped at work,” I said. I’d suspected as much, but confirmations were always valuable. “Yevgeny stalked her and cased the joint to figure out how best to snatch her without being seen.”
Arkady handed the camera to Miles and leaned into the safe. “There are a couple more things in here.”
The Android phone he removed was password protected so I said I’d take it to Priya Khatri, my best friend, part-time employee, and hacker extraordinaire. The other item was a thin metal lockbox. The lid had been busted open and there was dust in the crevice of the hinges.
I ran a fingertip over a hinge and rubbed the dust between my fingers. “Wood. An under-the-floor safe?”
I pulled out a handful of photos, but it took me a moment to recognize the girl. “It’s Gavriella again.” Her childhood through to early adulthood was captured in dozens and dozens of photos. “Given the lid was broken open, the contents, and the fact that Gavriella liked her hiding spots, this lockbox could have been taken from her apartment.”
“Did Gavriella have a ward on her apartment door?” Miles said.
“Yes, and it was active when Levi and I went there,” I said. “Oh, fuck. Level five Weaver. If anyone could disable it and then rearm it, it would have been Tatiana. They must have searched Gavriella’s home after she’d been kidnapped. I wonder what they were hoping to find?”
“You think the cell is hers?” Arkady said.
“Possibly,” I said. “Levi and I couldn’t find it when we searched her place.” I quickly sifted through the rest of the photos, hitting something hard at the bottom of the lockbox. A book with a reddish brown spine, it was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, his first novel featuring my beloved Sherlock Holmes.
“Props to her fine taste in literature, but why lock this puppy up?” I flipped the front cover open and frowned. “What’s this?”
Under the title on the first page was a message printed in block letters—perfect for someone who didn’t want their handwriting recognized.
On the first line was a “3.”
On the second was a “1.”
And on the third line was another “1” paired with a question mark.
Underneath, that said, “Thursday. Steam clock. 8PM.”
“The steam clock could be the one here in
