Page 34 of Eye for An Eye
Suddenly, I was horrified at myself. The man’s mother was dead. “Aloysius!”
He didn’t turn but looked back at me over his shoulder, eyes narrowed.
“I’m just … I’m so sorry for your loss.”
For a split-second, surprise and something warmer crossed his expression. But then he scowled and strode out the door, saying nothing.
“If I were going to kill anybody, it would be him,” Susan gritted out.
“Maybe less of the killing talk. Let’s go see what Andy has to say.” I took her hand and squeezed it. Susan was a person I’d touched in the past with, thankfully, no vision attached. If it didn’t happen the first time I touched someone, it never happened.
I should qualify this. That’s the way it has worked so far. You never really knew with magic. There wasn’t a rulebook, or at least not one that I’d ever heard of.
When I walked toward the kitchen, I couldn’t help but glance at the door to the library. It stood open, and I got a quick glimpse of Cordelia when I hurried by. She was slumped over, leaning against one of the boxes. I was glad that I couldn’t see the gunshot wound from where I stood. I’d seen enough awful things that I wasn’t eager to add to the list.
Andy sat stiffly on a stool at the kitchen island, notebook in hand, across from Mr. Butler. Susan’s godfather was leaning against the wall, as far from Andy as he could get and still be in the kitchen. His shoulders were hunched, his arms crossed, and his body language screamed defensiveness.
“Hey, Tess.” Andy sounded tired. His injuries had been healing well, but he still looked tired, too thin, and so pale that his freckles stood out in stark relief on his face.
Andy Kelly, chief and now only deputy in Dead End, wasn’t very tall, and he wasn’t very big or imposing, physically. With his flaming red hair and freckles, he looked young, so people underestimated him. But I’d come to know him very well as a friend and as a deputy over the past year, and he was one of the bravest people I’d ever met.
“Andy. Thanks for calling me.” I glanced back, but Susan hadn’t followed me. She was standing in the hallway across from the library, staring bleakly into the room.
“Wait. Susan said the room was locked. She had to unlock it. How did the murderer get in?” I turned and called out to Susan. “It was locked, right?”
She didn’t even look up. “Yes.”
“Does it lock from the inside and stay locked when you leave the room?”
“No. You can lock it from the inside without a key, or I can lock it from the outside with the key.” She pulled her keychain out of her pocket. “This key. There aren’t any copies, before you ask. And it was with me the whole time.”
I turned to Andy. “So, how did the killer get in there? There was no way for anybody to get in there and kill her, or no way for the killer to escape and lock the door after him- or herself afterward. It’s a classic locked-door mystery!”
Andy sighed. “Tess, this isn’t TV. And there’s no such thing as a locked-door mystery these days. Somebody could use magic to lock the door.”
“Or string and magnets,” Mr. Butler offered.
“A lock pick,” Susan said, walking toward us.
Andy: “Vampire compulsion to make someone lock the door and then shoot herself.”
I deflated. “Yeah. I guess. But wait! Was the ring of salt smudged?”
Susan shrugged. “Intact. But, Tess, it only keeps magic in. A killer could just step over it.”
This is why I’m a pawnshop owner, not a detective.
“Mr. Butler, did you see or hear anything?”
Susan’s godfather glanced at me and smiled a little. “I wasn’t here. I got a call that Susan had been in a car accident, and I rushed to the hospital in Orlando. When I got there, they said they’d never called me and had no record of Susan being admitted. Then I called Susan—wish I’d tried that first—and found out she was fine. But bless you for asking me if I heard anything instead of assuming I killed her.”
I blinked. It had never occurred to me. But … what did I really know about the man?
Nothing.
I’ve been told I have the opposite of a poker face, and it’s true. Mr. Butler clearly read the thoughts racing through my mind, and his smile disappeared. “Right. Well, at least your first instinct was that I was innocent.”
Before I could stammer out an apology, Andy tapped his notebook on the quartz countertop. “Okay. You said you left after this alleged phone call.”
