Page 54 of Last Violent Call
Benedikt turned another page with his left hand, keeping his right arm still for Marshall. The chandelier over the bar flickered, as if it could sense that it was soon time to blink out.
“Do you think the syringe was for the same substance stored in that drawer?” Marshall asked suddenly. “Someone could be carrying both powder and liquid forms.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Benedikt replied. “Maybe Popov was involved in a deal gone wrong.”
Marshall made a thoughtful noise. “He seems more the businessman type than the criminal type.”
“You never know.”
“I suppose so.”
By his tone, Marshall did not sound convinced. Benedikt wasn’t too persuaded by his own words, in all honesty. There wasn’t enough to work with. They had a dead body and a syringe at the crime scene. A threatening message on the mirror and a trail leading into an empty room that had previously held illicit substances. It gave Benedikt the feeling of holding two puzzle pieces that were supposed to slot together perfectly, only to find that the edges were disfigured and discolored. Where had the drugs gone? Why was the needle missing the rest of its syringe?
Benedikt sighed. Hearing the sound, Marshall draped an arm over him, the motion firm. The physical warmth of fondness burned into Benedikt’s heart at the gesture. A warm circuitry, spreading inside his whole body.
“Are you ready to sit in the dark?” Benedikt asked.
Marshall groaned.
“Ben?”
“Yes, Mars?”
“What if the killer is a ghost?”
“… Did you snort something?”
“No, think about it. If monsters exist, what is stopping the undead from rising and moving around without us seeing them—”
“Ben?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Phasing through walls is a possibility we need to be considering seriously. If some people can instantly heal their wounds and other people are being given inhuman strength, why can’t there beghoststhat go invisible and—”
“Ben?”
“If this is another ghost theory, I might hit you.”
“In an erotic way?”
“In a murder way, Mars.”
“Maybe I should have been interviewingyouas a possible killer.”
“Mars.”
“Yes, nae sarang?”
“When would Ieverhit you erotically?”
“It doesn’t sound that great to me either. Pretend I never gossiped about your cousin like this if he asks, but on the phone last month,Juliette said he was really into—”
At some point, Benedikt must have dozed off, because he jerked awake with a start, greeted by slashing lines of light cutting through the window. They were passing some small town. In seconds, its illuminated shape was left behind in the distance, and the dining carriage fell into a hazy black again. The color was different from a few hours earlier. It wasn’t the heavy blanket of comfort when most people were asleep; it blushed with the faintest lightness of a dawn that waited an hour away.
Something was off. Benedikt glanced to his side and found only empty space where Marshall had been.
He jumped to the worst conclusion.
