I scoffed at her. “It’s fine. I didn’t grow up down there and have only visited a few times. And it’s pretty much what you’d imagine.”
Her pained expression relaxed.
I frowned. “Okay… so what does that mean for Ludolf now that Roch’s been tried for his crimes and locked up?”
Madeline shrugged. “A lot of Roch’s cronies are still at large and still in positions of power. Maybe Ludolf’s still trying to move up the political ladder? But I doubt anyone’s willing to overlook him being a shifter.”
I bit the tip of my thumb. Could Ludolf’s potion obsession have something to do with his attempts to rise up the ranks? Was he working on some project he thought would impress Roch or his cronies? I thought again of all the missing activists, and my stomach turned—how could he do that to his own people?
Madeline splayed her hands. “I told you what I know—now I’m going to need some intel from you in exchange for all I gave you.”
I frowned. “What do you want exactly?”
She scooted closer, knocking over a stack of letters, and looked intensely into my eyes. “I want to do a piece on the secret shifter underground. It’s going to be even bigger than my exposé on Carclaustra, I can feel it. This entire clandestine world below people’s feet—it’s going to blow their minds!”
“Err.” I leaned back in the chair and blew out a heavy breath. “Madeline, this is going to get me in even hotter water with Ludolf.”
She gripped my shoulder. “Girl, he cursed you and is testing potions on you. That’s not going to get better. If I write this piece, at least there’s a chance someone intervenes.”
I sighed. I didn’t have a whole lot of hope for that, but I took her point that it really couldn’t get much worse.
She pointed at the manila folder under my arm, the police file I’d borrowed from Peter. “What’s that? Does it have to do with the Malorie Rutherford case?” Her eyes lit up. “If I could just take a peek at that, we could call it even.”
I shot her a flat look. “Nice try.” I took a deep breath. If I told Madeline about the underground, it’d be taking a step in a direction I could never go back on. Keeping shifter secrets had been embedded in us from a young age, all of us shifters.
To reveal them to an outsider, much less a reporter, felt like a betrayal. I hoped I wasn’t pulling a Ludolf and selling out my own people. Then again, if the current system thrived on secrecy and misinformation about shifters, then maybe this would be a step in the right direction.
Maybe Madeline’s piece would help to get out the truth about shifters and break some of Ludolf’s power. Snakes, I hoped so.
I sighed. “Alright—what do you want to know?”
26
THE BODEGA
After talking with Madeline, I was just a few streets over from my neck of the woods in the Darkmoon District. I was exhausted from spilling shifter secrets to the thorough, though nosy, reporter, and felt I deserved some treats for all my hard work. I decided to pick up some snacks, with about a gallon of wine, from the corner bodega before heading back up to Peter’s place, where I might share some of it with him.
The bell tinkled over the door as I stepped in out of the rain. A few other shoppers milled about the tight, muggy space, the linoleum slick with muddy footprints. I glanced to my left toward the checkout counter to wave hello at Biddy and Jan—the two middle-aged women who ran the place. But they were both busy ringing up a customer, so I slid a basket over my arm, tucking the police file I’d borrowed from Peter under my armpit.
I browsed the few aisles, shelves packed with food, an assortment of everyday potions and tonics, along with quills, toenail clippers, and black candles. Bright neon lights flashed outside the windows, blurry with rain. I ducked under the bat perches for sale that hung overhead and threw an assortment of items into my basket until I could barely carry it.
I headed to the checkout and heaved my basket up onto the counter. Biddy and Jan worked together to ring me up—Biddy lifting each item and calling out the prices to Jan in an overly loud voice, considering she stood at her elbow. Jan, for her part, punched the prices into the metal cash register, which clicked and whirred.
I grabbed a red lollipop from a cup on the counter and held it up to Biddy. “This too, please.”
“One lollipop—half a merkle.”
Jan tapped away at the register.
As they worked, I unwrapped the lollipop, stuck it in my mouth, then pulled the police file from under my arm and opened it. I flipped through statements, pictures of evidence, the photo we’d found in the safe, and finally examined the photograph of our mystery Jane Doe.
A photograph of the dead body was much easier to tolerate than seeing the real thing in person. I puzzled over her fringed vest and bell bottoms. Why had she been dressed like that? Had she heard the phoenix fundraiser was a costume party and missed the bit about it being animal print themed?
“Why do you have a picture of Maria Begin?”
I glanced up and frowned at Biddy. She held a package of beef jerky in one hand, a bottle of red wine in the other. Jan took the jerky from her and placed it in a paper bag. It took me a moment to register her words.
I closed the file and pulled the lollipop out of my mouth. “Who?”
Biddy and Jan exchanged exasperated looks, then Biddy leaned forward over the tall counter, her dirty-blond hair falling forward over her shoulders. She tapped my file folder. “Maria Begin.”
My breath caught, and I stuck the lollipop back in my mouth and fumbled to open the file back up. I fished
