“And?”
“And what?”
“What did you see when you were in my head, Miss Stern? You were distressed when you cast me out.”
Alex contemplated how much she wanted to tell him. “What do you remember from the moment you died, North?”
His face seemed to go still, and she realized she’d spoken his name out loud. Damn it.
“Is that what you saw?” he asked slowly. “My death?”
“Just answer me.”
“Nothing,” he admitted. “One moment I was standing in my new office, talking to Daisy, and then… I was no one. The mortal world was lost to me.”
“You were on the other side.” Alex could see how that could mess with your head. “Did you ever try to find Gladys O’Donaghue behind the Veil?”
“Who?”
“Daisy’s maid.”
North frowned. “The police interviewed her. She found our… bodies, but she wasn’t even there to witness the crime.”
“And she was just a maid?” said Alex. Guys like this never noticed the help. But North was right. Alex had spotted Gladys outside enjoying the spring weather herself. If Gladys had seen or heard something strange at the scene, she had every reason to share that information with the police. And Alex suspected there had been no one to see—just magic, invisible and wild, the frightened spirit of a man who had been brutalized by the Bonesmen and somehow found his way into North. “I’ll let you know what I find at Black Elm. Quit following me around and go hunt down Tara.”
“What did you see in my head, Miss Stern?”
“Sorry! You’re breaking up!” Alex released the plug in the drain.
She headed out of the common room and texted Turner that she was on her way to the Marsh greenhouses. On her way, she placed a phone call to the hospital to ask after Michael Reyes. She should have checked in on the victima from Skull and Bones’s latest prognostication sooner, but she’d been more than a little distracted. It took her a while to get the right person on the line, but eventually Jean Gatdula came on to tell her that Reyes was recovering well and would be sent home in the next two days. Alex knew “home” was Columbus House, a shelter far away from campus. She hoped Bones at least left him with a pocketful of cash for his trouble.
The Marsh Botanical Garden sat at the top of Science Hill, the old mansion topped by what looked like a bell tower, the grounds of the former estate rolling down the slope toward the apartment Tara had shared with Lance. There was no real security and Alex blended in easily with the students coming and going from the facility. Four massive forestry school greenhouses stood near the back entrance, surrounded by a cluster of smaller glass structures. Alex had worried she wouldn’t be able to identify where Tara had tended her dangerous garden, but as she made a circuit around the grounds, she detected the stink of the uncanny beneath the smells of manure and turned soil. Though the little greenhouse looked ordinary enough, Alex suspected it had the remnants of a glamour on it—probably courtesy of Kate Masters and Manuscript. How else would Tara have cultivated her crops without inviting suspicion?
But when Alex pulled open the door, she found nothing but empty planters and overturned pots on the tables. Someone had cleaned the place out. Kate? Colin? Someone else? Had Lance opened a portal from his jail cell and come here to destroy potential evidence?
A single, slender tendril of some unknown plant lay in a pile of dirt beside a toppled plastic container. Alex touched her finger to it. The little vine unfurled, a lone white bud appearing from its leaves. Its petals parted in a burst of glittering seeds like a firework, with a soft but audible puh, and it withered to nothing.
Outside, Alex found a lean woman in jeans and a barn jacket digging through a bucket of some kind of mulch with gloved hands.
“Hey,” she said, “can you tell me who uses that greenhouse?”
“Sveta Myers. She’s a grad student.”
Alex didn’t remember her name from Tara’s case file.
“You know where I can find her?”
The woman shook her head. “She left a couple days ago. Took the rest of the semester off.”
Sveta Myers had gotten spooked. Maybe she’d done the work of destroying the greenhouse herself. “You ever see her with a couple? Skinny little blond girl and a big guy, looked like he lived at the gym?”
“I saw the girl here a lot. She was Sveta’s cousin or niece or something?” Alex highly doubted that. “I might have seen the guy once or twice. Why?”
“Thanks for your help,” said Alex, and headed for the gates.
She tried to shake off her feeling of disappointment as she made her way back down the hill. She’d hoped to find more of Tara in the gardens, not just piles of dirt heaped like a fresh grave.
Turner had said he’d meet Alex outside Ingalls Rink, and she spotted his Dodge idling by the curb. It was blessedly warm inside.
“Anything?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Someone cleaned the whole place out, and the student they were working with skipped town too. Someone named Sveta Myers.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell, but I’ll see if I can track her down.”
“I’ll check the alumni rosters to see if she’s connected to any of the societies,” said Alex. “I want to talk to Lance Gressang.”
“You’re back on that?”
Alex had almost forgotten she’d feigned interest in talking to Gressang before. “Someone has to question him about the new information we have.”
“If the case goes to trial—”
“It will be too late. Someone sent a monster after me. They killed Tara, stole all her plants. Maybe they got to Sveta Myers too. They’re cleaning house.”
“Even if I could get an interview with Gressang, I’m not bringing you with me.”
“Why not? We need Gressang to believe we understand more about all of this than he does. It will take him about thirty seconds to realize you don’t know your ass from a hot rock.”
“What a colorful turn of phrase.”
“I saw you in that apartment, Turner. You almost wet yourself when Lance disappeared through that wall.”
“You have a real way about you, y’know that, Stern?”
“Is it my charm or my looks that you can’t get enough of ?”
Turner twisted in his seat to give her a long stare. “You don’t always have to come out swinging. What are you so angry at?”
Alex felt an irritating jolt of embarrassment. “Everything,” she muttered, gazing at the fogged-up windshield. “Anyway, you know I’m right.”
“Maybe so, but Lance is represented by counsel. Neither of us can talk to him without his lawyer.”
“Would you like to?”
“Of course I’d like to. I’d also like a rare steak and a moment of peace without you yapping in my ear.”
“Can’t oblige. But I think I can get you an interview with Gressang.”
“Let’s say that’s true. Nothing we learn will be admissible in a court of law, Stern. Lance Gressang could tell us he killed Tara twelve times over and we wouldn’t be able to pin it on him.”
“But we’ll still get answers.”
Turner rested his gloved hands on the steering wheel. “I’m pretty sure when my mother was talking about the devil, she had you in mind.”
“I’m a delight.”
“If I said yes, what would we need?”
Turner already had a nice enough suit. “You own a briefcase?”
“I can borrow one.”
“Great. Then all we need is this.” She pulled the mirror she’d used to gain access to Tara’s apartment from her pocket.
“You want me to walk into a secure jail with a compact and a nice attaché case?”
“It’s worse than that, Turner.” Alex flipped the mirror in her hand. “I want you to believe in magic.”