I hadn’t wanted to tell them my new intel until everyone was gathered. I gave Peter a quick kiss hello and tossed Daisy a hunk of beefy jerky. She pulled her head back, letting it fall to the floor, and shot me an indignant look.
I raised my brows at her, and her nose twitched. The whites shone all around her eyes, and she darted over to where it’d fallen and gobbled it up.
Peter rubbed his cold hands together and blew on them as he settled into one of the hard reception area chairs against the wall. “So what’s up?”
I raised a brow. “First, I went to see Madeline.” I stood between the tall reception desk and the coffee table in the center of the L-shaped lineup of chairs. I looked between Peter and my friends. “She dug up some dirt about Ludolf—turns out he sold out shifter activists in exchange for the position of mob boss of the shifters from King Roch right after the Monster Wars.”
I set my jaw. “The leaders who were fighting for shifter rights in the face of Roch’s anti- shifter propaganda just disappeared.” I huffed and paced again. “They weren’t sent to Carclaustra, so I think we can all guess at what happened to them.”
“That’s messed-up,” Heidi breathed, her eyes round. She popped another chip in her mouth.
I nodded.
Peter cleared his throat. “You’re telling me Madeline found evidence that King Roch ordered Ludolf to kill these leaders? That could be all we need to arrest him.”
I shook my head. “Ludolf told him the location of a meeting between the leaders. I’m assuming Roch took care of all the killing.”
Peter slumped back in his seat, and Daisy rested her head on his thigh. “And there’s no point in arresting Roch again—he’s already been sentenced to life in Carclaustra.”
Will spat an olive pit into the lid of the jar. “Is this the fascinating news you gathered us all together to hear, Jolene?” He shot me a flat look.
I rolled my eyes. “There’s more.” I flashed my eyes at Peter. “I have a couple of informants who identified our Jane Doe.”
He sat upright. “Yeah?”
I nodded. “She’s Maria Begin, a shifter who disappeared about fifty years ago.”
His eyes lit up.
“Guess what she shifts into? A phoenix!” I held my hands near my head. “She was the snakin’ phoenix!”
I was satisfied by Peter’s reaction. His jaw dropped, then he frowned, then he cocked his head, then closed his mouth and grew pensive.
I raised my brows and addressed them all. “The ladies at the bodega recognized Maria because she looked the same as when she disappeared over fifty years ago, down to her bell bottoms and fringed vest. At first I wondered how that could be possible, but think about it. As a phoenix, she was reborn every fifty years—she’d never age beyond that.”
Peter ran a hand over his mouth. “Did Malorie Rutherford kill her? Why would she?”
I nodded. I’d been giving this a lot of thought since Biddy and Jan had identified Maria. “Maybe when Malorie fell into the cage, the phoenix, Maria, saw her opportunity to attack her captor for all these years.”
Peter nodded, mulling it over. “And Malorie fought back with the talon she wore as a necklace?”
Will pressed his lips tight together. “Talon, huh? Phoenix talon?”
I frowned. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
He shook his head. “It’s rumored to be the only thing that’ll kill a phoenix. One of its own talons to the heart.”
Peter and I exchanged looks. Maria had been slashed across the chest with the talon, so… yeah, that would do it.
Peter frowned. “But how would we explain the phoenix shooting the poisoned dart into Malorie? How would Maria have gotten ahold of the dart or the gun?”
I bit my lip. “Mark admitted to stealing potions from the office—maybe he stole a poison dart and the blow gun while he was at it and gave them to Maria? Maybe the phoenix promised him something… or maybe he just felt bad for her being trapped there. He hinted to Quincy that he knew the truth about something shady going on at the sanctuary.”
Will popped another olive into his mouth. “How would Maria, in phoenix form, have shot Malorie with a poisoned dart?”
My shoulders tensed—good point.
Peter, from his seat by the door, turned his palms up. “Maybe when Malorie attacked the phoenix, Maria turned back into her human form? And then she was able to use the dart gun on her?”
Heidi frowned and crunched on a mouthful of potato chips. “Malorie was pushed into the cage from the second story and hit her head pretty hard, right?”
Peter and I nodded.
She tipped her head to the side. “So Maria saw her fall, changed into human form and grabbed a blow gun and poisoned dart the veterinarian had smuggled in for her, maybe, and aimed it at Malorie? And then she came to and managed, while her head was bleeding, to slash Maria in the chest with her talon necklace? And somehow Maria then shot Malorie in the back of the neck with the dart and they died at roughly the same time?”
Peter heaved a heavy sigh. “And there were no signs of a struggle.”
Heidi flashed her eyes at Will, then said in a doubtful tone, “Riiiggghttt.”
She had a point. I shook my head. “And then, how did the blow gun end up in the hallway of the sanctuary?”
Will licked his finger, then held it up. “Besides, you’re assuming Malorie was keeping this phoenix lady captive for what—fifty-plus years? Ha.” He raised a bushy brow. “Um… if that’s so, why wouldn’t Maria have just shifted to human form earlier, like during some public tour, and been like hey, let me out of this cage, dum-dums?”
“Ooh!” Heidi bounced in her seat and clapped her hands. “What if the phoenix wasn’t a captive. What if Malorie was protecting her? You think it was like witness protection
