Page 104 of Wicche Hunt

“Absolutely. Take it. I know where to find you.”

Chuckling, he stood, pocketing the journal before picking up the glass and plate. “You do, indeed. If I find anything more and your lights are on, I’ll tell you.”

“Perfect. And I’ll bring you some cake tomorrow.” I went with him and opened the door, as his hands were full.

“Something to look forward to,” he said as he shuffled back home.

I started on the frosting while the cake layers baked. Declan had once said he liked coconut. I hoped that was true because I was making coconut frosting.

While the layers cooled and the frosting was refrigerated, I received a text.

Detective Hernández: Call me when you get up.

As I was up, I called.

She answered on the first ring. “Why are you awake? Is this a bad night?”

“No. It’s a full moon night. I’m waiting up for Declan,” I said, plopping down on the couch.

“Full m—oh. So that’s true about…” She trailed off.

“It is.”

“Okay. Something to think about later. I just wanted you to know we have Brandon in custody too.”

“What? That was fast.”

“We got a warrant to search Dorian’s room on the Cypress campus and found blood in the bathroom sink drain. We also found a document on his laptop where they’d been recording each incident of revenge since they were in school. Brandon was easy to find once we knew who Dorian was. Since you said Brandon was the weak link, we interrogated him first. He was trying to play it off like it was all a big misunderstanding, so he didn’t call for a lawyer.”

“Putz.”

“Truly,” she said. “Anyway, we were able to hit him with so much information from you that he was crying in no time and rolling over to put all the blame on Dorian. Now, Dorian is no fool. His lawyer’s doing all the talking at this point, but we have the dean’s blood in his drain—we’re pretty sure. We’re waiting for the lab to confirm.

“And we have the document that clearly states he killed Pearl because she had turned him in and ruined his summer. We also found the case with the makeup and face putty he’d used to alter his appearance enough that Pearl didn’t recognize him. And, of course, we have the photos Brandon had taken of Garza right before he killed him, his fingerprints on the shovel, as well as years of texts between the two, crowing about their successes.”

“So, that’s it,” I said. “They’re locked up and can’t hurt anyone else?”

“Mostly. As they both come from wealthy families, they’ll probably end up with bail, but they’d be idiots to do anything more before trial. We’re going to get them, Arwyn. We’ll get justice for their victims. Oh, and you were right. There was a kid named Spencer who died in a car accident during his senior year. He also came from averywealthy family, and we now have the ability to give his family the truth about their son’s death.”

“Andyou’ll have an influential guy helping to push for these two to go to jail,” I said.

“Oh, did I forget to say Spencer’s dad is a judge and his mother is an heiress to like a billion-dollar fortune and that they were both devoted to their son?” She scoffed. “Do you know who my father is?”she mimicked. “No, but I know who Spencer’s parents are.

“Brandon’s pathetic,” she continued. “Still a cold-blooded killer, but he just wanted to impress Dorian. He took lives to seem cool to another sociopath. Dorian, though, scares the shit out of me. I look into his eyes and they’re dead. I’ve heard that term before, but I’ve never experienced it. He’s evil.”

“Yes,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach that Pearl had spent any time with him at all, that anyone had.

“Oh, the other reason I was calling is to see if you wanted to let your aunt know they’ve been arrested or if you’d prefer it came from us.”

“Thank you. I would like to be the one to tell her. I’ll visit tomorrow. Thank you for thinking of that.”

“Okay, good. Listen, I’m beat so I’m going to hang up now, but not before I thank you—Arthur and I both thank you. We never would have found them this quickly without you. More people would have died. On behalf of the police and those assholes’ future victims and their loved ones, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now go to bed,” I said.

“That I can do. Goodnight.”

I sat with it for a bit, hoping they truly had been stopped and would soon be locked up for life. A chill ran down my spine. We had to find Calliope and her demon. They had to be stopped before their sorcery bled darkness into more pockets of our community.

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