Page 100 of It All Started with a Bite

Connecting the Dots

“So let me get this straight.”Didi arched an eyebrow and steepled her hands under her chin. “You think Wheeler was at Château Montmartre this weekend?”

“Yes. And I think he was there to meet with Priscilla Holt or Isobel Lynton.”

I described how Bo and I had caught Wheeler’s scent and followed it to the forest.

“The woman Bo and I saw when we returned to the hotel was wearing an outfit similar to Priscilla’s and Isobel’s,” I finished quietly.

Gavin’s nostrils sparked slightly. “That’s a serious accusation.” He exchanged a troubled glance with Nigel. “Not only do they come from prestigious families, they’re both highly regarded in the supernatural community.”

Nigel nodded in agreement.

I sighed. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you guys before I said anything to Samuel.”

It was Monday morning. Two days had passed since the tea party at Château Montmartre. I’d spent most of Sunday dodging Samuel’s questions about what had happened in the castle gardens.

“Was there anything else?” Didi furrowed her brow. “Any clue that might help figure out what he was doing there?”

I hesitated. “There was some kind of magic lingering with his scent. It was…weird.”

“It creeped us out,” Bo elaborated.

Didi’s expression turned thoughtful in the hush that followed.

“Could the magic you sensed have come from the crystal skull?”

I blinked, my pulse quickening. I hadn’t thought of that.

The cursed artifact was reputed to carry dark magic. Maybe that’s why it felt different from the magic I’d detected from the artifacts in the Den and even the runes carved into the keystones of Château Montmartre.

“I think you might be right,” I mumbled.

“I have new information on Wheeler.” Nigel tapped a couple of keys on his laptop and turned it around so we could see the screen. “One of my contacts in the criminal underground got back to me this morning. Rumor has it Wheeler recently met with some rather unsavory characters.”

We studied the murky pictures on the screen. It showed a group of some twenty people.

“Who are they?” I asked warily.

“Vampire mercenaries,” Nigel said nervously. “And a couple of rogue witches.”

Bo’s ears flattened.

Dread knotted my stomach. This case was starting to take a dangerous turn. The kind that usually ended up in one of the true crime shows my dog liked to watch, with dead investigators buried in shallow graves.

“We should keep an eye on Priscilla and Isobel,” Didi said grimly. “See if either of them makes contact with Wheeler.”

“Agreed,” Gavin said.

I nodded.

The next few days passed in a blur of surveillance at the same time we doubled our efforts to track down Wheeler and the crystal skull. To my chagrin, neither Priscilla nor Isobel did anything suspicious. They went about their daily activities and attended meetings and social functions like nothing was wrong.

I was starting to wonder if we were on the wrong track when Nigel called us into his office late Friday afternoon, after we’d returned from investigating yet another dead end.

The boogeyman manifested several tentacles distractedly where he sat behind his main computer. “I’ve gone through the security footage from Château Montmartre. I didn’t see Wheeler or anyone who looks like Priscilla or Isobel in the gardens.”

We watched the accelerated recordings playing on the monitor. The time stamps were from the time the tea party had started to when it’d ended.

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