by Gigi Pandian
“That woman he married. Rosa. She was in her seventies when she died.”
“Too young, I know.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not being funny. I’m sad she died so young.”
Max shook his head. Raindrops flung from his hair, and more stuck to his long black eyelashes and ran down his face.
“Either your friend was running a scam to get her money, or—”
“Or what? He fell in love with an older woman? And would you give it a second thought if their sexes were reversed? A fifty-year-old woman with a seventy-something husband? I thought you liked Tobias and understood his grief at losing her.”
“I did. I feel like I still do. But now I know why. He’s a con man, Zoe.”
“They were married for decades, Max. Decades. That’s a really long con.”
Max took a moment before speaking. “You’re right. I don’t know what it is … but something is off about his story. How well do you know him?”
“Better than I know you,” I said, and immediately regretted it. But it was too late. The look on Max’s face showed me I’d shoved a knife into his heart. He stepped back and nodded, then slammed the car door.
When I pulled the jeep up in front of Max’s house, my green pickup truck was already parked on the street. As I turned off the engine, Max came over to help me out. Instead of lifting me to the ground, he pulled me into a hug and buried his head in my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t want to fight.”
“I’m sorry too. I know you were angry because you care about me and don’t want to see me get hurt. But I won’t. Not by Tobias.”
Max pulled back, but his lips hovered an inch from mine. “I don’t want to get you sick.”
“You seem well to me.”
He laughed and rested his nose on mine. “I don’t know what magic was in that soup you made me, or in Tobias’s tea, but I do feel so much better.”
“It’s not magic,” I said. “It’s old medicine we’ve forgotten. And besides, I wouldn’t care if you did get me sick.”
Max’s lips brushed mine as the rain began to fall harder, pelting nearly as hard as hail.
“We can’t get a break, can we?” he whispered.
“It’s only a few yards to the house.”
I expected him to help me limp to the house at his side, but instead he swept me up, carried me inside, and set me down on the couch.
“I’m dripping water and blood all over your white couch,” I said, trying to move.
“I don’t care,” Max said and crawled on top of me.
It was a kiss that reached every part of me. I have no idea how long it lasted, until he finally said, “As much as it pains me to say this, I should probably be the sensible one and get you some ice for your ankle. Then we can pick up where we left off.”
“And as much as it pains me,” I said when he returned with the ice pack, “I need to tell you something I couldn’t while we were at the Castle. I need you to call Detective Vega.”
“I’m sure she’s busy with the stolen painting, since it relates to the Logan Magnus case. And I’m kinda hoping she doesn’t hear you went to see Isabella. You were just being nice, not anything related to the case—”
“That’s the thing. We need to tell her there’s ergot at that house.”
“Ergot?”
“It’s a poison.”
“She already knows there are a bunch of toxic paints at the Castle. She took them for testing. The question, of course, is whether Logan killed himself or whether someone somehow forced him to swallow the paint. Which doesn’t seem likely. But that’s what Vega is working on.”
“Ergot is a poison that can cause hallucinations and leave people open to suggestion.” My throat tightened as I thought of my former friends, so quick to claim I was a witch. “It’s a way someone could have convinced Logan to swallow the paint … ”
Max swore. “How did you see it?”
“I smelled it.”
Max swore again.
“You know I’m sensitive to the scents of plants and organic matter. It’s a fungus. What? You thought I was going to say Isabella had a bottle lying about labeled ‘Ergot Poison’? Sorry. I’m not making this simple. But I know what I smelled.”
Max pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re right. You should tell her.”
“I can’t go anywhere.” I pointed to my ankle. “Can’t you just call her?”
“She needs the details from you.” Max’s cell phone rang. “Speak of the devil,” he said as he looked at the phone. He went into the kitchen to take the call. I didn’t hear most of what was said, but I heard his voice rising in frustration. After a few seconds of silence, he came back to the living room.
“As I expected,” he said, “Isabella called Luciana after your visit. But she had a crazy story about you having an old portrait you claim is new. I wonder if Isabella is taking something to dull the pain of her husband’s death.”
“Wait, who’s Luciana?”
“Detective Vega.”
“Oh. So you told her about the ergot?”
Max shook his head. “Games of telephone are a bad idea in my line of work. She’s working the case, though. She knows you hurt your ankle, so she’s going to swing by … ”
“You sounded like you were about to say something else.”
“I’m going to have a really busy week with a case I caught. So I don’t know how much I can take care of you and your ankle for the next couple of days. You’ll be okay?”
“I will, but that’s not what you were going to say.”
Max smiled. “Do you think you can take a day off from baking for Blue? Oh—it’s okay if you can’t. Never mind.”
“No. That’s not what my expression meant. I … there’s something I should tell you about that.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to tell me.”
“You have?”
“I’ve suspected for a while now, but I knew it wasn’t your secret to tell. It’s his, isn’t it?”
My heart thudded in my throat. Why was Max so calm if he knew about Dorian? Was this the calm before he exploded? “Um … ”
“Your French friend. The guy who’s disfigured and doesn’t want anyone to see him. I’ve been noticing the French themes in ‘your’ baking.” Max grinned. “He’s the real chef, isn’t he? And you’re his cover.”
I smiled back at Max. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay. Like I said. I know it’s not your secret to give away. Don’t say anything. Not about that. I want you to say yes to something else. Come to a birthday dinner for my mom tomorrow night. She lives out in Astoria. It’s a few hours away and it’s easiest to stay overnight. But I need to warn you, my family is … ah … not the most normal bunch.”
“Whose is?” I know everyone says that, but with Dorian, I’m fairly certain mine makes the final cut for weirdest families.
“I didn’t want to scare you away … But I’d like for you to meet them.”
I smiled. “Detective Vega told you she brought up your family yesterday?”
“She’s good people. And she likes you. She didn’t want me messing this up.”
“I don’t either,” I said, and kissed him.
twenty-five
From Max’s couch, I told Detective Vega about the ergot I’d smelled in Isabella’s art studio. I wouldn’t want to play cards with the woman; she had the world’s best poker face. I couldn’t tell what she thought of the information I gave her. Since she knew undisclosed details about how Logan Magnus died, did ergot poisoning seem like something that could be involved? I doubted they’d tested for it. Was she happy I’d given her evidence that might confirm a theory of murder? Did she believe me at all?
After she left, Max drove me
home in my truck. Tobias came out the door as we pulled up.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Zoe hurt her ankle,” Max answered. He pretended not to see Tobias’s outstretched hand and helped me to the house. “I’ve got her,” he added curtly.
He lifted me to the green velvet couch, then stood hovering over me, struggling with his own internal dilemma. Did he trust me enough to trust Tobias too? I was injured, and home (supposedly alone) with a strong man who had a strange past.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Tobias said. “Making tea. It’ll take a few minutes.”
I raised an eyebrow at Max after he left the room. “You didn’t have to be such an—”
“You’re sure you’ll be all right?”
“I’m one thousand percent positive.”
Max winced. “I hate that expression.”
“And I hate it when my friends don’t trust each other. Or me.”
“I trust you. It’s not the same as not worrying.”
At the sound of the front door shutting behind Max, Tobias came out of the kitchen. He walked over to it and locked it without me needing to ask.
“He found out about Rosa’s age?”
I nodded.
“But he still left you here alone with me. And while a helpless, injured damsel in distress as well.”
I threw a pillow at him and stuck out my tongue. “He still likes you. He’s just struggling to reconcile his feelings with how he thinks the world works. The rational part of his brain still wonders if you’re a con man who tricked an elderly woman out of her money.”
“You going to tell me how this happened?” Tobias pointed at my knee and ankle. “Do you want me to take a look?”
“No. You’ll sprinkle cayenne in my wounds. And that’ll hurt even more.”
“I only use that in emergencies, you know. You’re not bleeding nearly enough. I’ll even stick to basic EMT training, starting with cutting your jeans open to the knee. They’re ruined anyway.” Tobias had worked as an EMT rather than going to medical school to become a doctor because there was far less chance of being found out if he didn’t pursue a degree.
“I hate these jeans anyway,” I said. “Good riddance to my only pair. I don’t know why people love them so much. They’re not nearly as comfortable as tailored slacks.” It continued to amaze me that modern people found an abundance of off-the-hanger clothing better than a few handmade clothes fitted to one’s own body. “It’s really just my sprained ankle that’s not doing well. If you bring me that tea you promised, plus garlic and olive oil so I can make a poultice for the swelling, I’ll tell you and Dorian everything.”
“Bon,” Dorian said, coming down the stairs.
“Gargoyles must have great intuition,” Tobias said.
I pointed to a corner of the wall next to the kitchen. “The old pipes of this house lend themselves to eavesdropping. As long as people aren’t whispering, from the attic it’s possible to hear what’s going on in the kitchen and living room. You have to listen really carefully for it to work.”
“I am a great listener,” Dorian said, hopping from the last step onto the hardwood floor of the open living room/dining room. “And I have just heard news. I—bof!—what has happened, Zoe?”
“You have news?” I asked.
“Not as dramatic as yours. Someone has attacked you? Who is the monster who—”
“I wasn’t attacked. Not exactly. But I have a lot to report.”
“As do I,” Dorian said. “Monsieur Freeman. If you can help Zoe to the dining table, we can each share our news.”
“We can’t do that from the couch?” Tobias asked.
“We need sustenance,” Dorian said. “And Zoe cannot eat properly while lying on the couch.”
Tobias helped me to the table and then went off to make a poultice for my ankle while Dorian brought me a platter of homemade, salted, dark chocolate caramels, which he insisted were perfect for healing both body and mind.
“I have bad news to report,” the gargoyle said as I bit into a gooey caramel. “The auction house returned my call. It is now public knowledge that they suffered a burglary.”
The mouth-watering melted sugar felt as though it was transforming on my tongue from sweet cream to burnt sludge. My throat dry, I forced myself to swallow.
“The records of the painting?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Gone,” Dorian said. “All the records pertaining to The Alchemist are gone.”
Tobias swore. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“It’s not,” I said. “Because that’s not all. The painting itself has been stolen. That’s what I discovered when I was visiting Isabella at the Castle.”
I filled them in on erratic Isabella, the stolen painting, and the ergot poison. By the time I was finished, the chocolate caramels were gone and Dorian’s gray mouth hung agape. Tobias stood from the table and pushed open the swinging door leading to the kitchen. He returned a moment later with a bottle of wine in one hand and three long-stemmed glasses tucked between the fingers of the other. In silence, he poured us each a glass, then swallowed his own in two gulps.
“We must ask ourselves,” Dorian said, “what is so special about this painting?” He held up a clawed hand. “Oui. I know the painting is important to us. But what do others care of it?”
“Cleo believes it’s an authentic Hayden,” I said, “in spite of what the experts have said. It could be worth a lot of money.”
“Or it could be proof of the art forger in Portland,” Tobias said. “Either way, fake or authentic, there’s a motive for murder and theft.”
“There has to be a record of the painting somewhere,” I said.
“Je suis désolé,” Dorian said. “I am sorry, but my internet research has also failed.”
“What research?”
“Provenance. The history of ownership of a piece of art.”
“I know what provenance is,” I said. “I have to worry about it for the higher-end items I sell with Elixir. Especially the ones I had in storage in Paris for a while, to account for where they supposedly were when they were really just sitting in storage. My ‘grandmother’ had a lot of art.”
“But all is not lost. We know a hacker—”
“You know a hacker?” Tobias asked.
“Veronica is not a hacker,” I said.
“You diminish her incredible mind because she is only fifteen?” Dorian said.
“Brixton’s friend Veronica is smart and good with computers,” I explained to Tobias. “She built the new website for Elixir. That doesn’t make her a hacker.”
Dorian waved a clawed hand through the air. “Semantics. You should call Brixton to ask for the assistance of the hacker.”
“What’s she supposed to hack?” Tobias asked. “There’s no magical database of where all paintings are at all times. And I’m sorry, am I the only responsible adult here? If she’s only a kid—”
“Actually … ” I began.
“You can’t be serious,” Tobias said. “You’ve been rooming with the gargoyle for too long if you think—”
“I don’t mean that she should do hacking,” I said. “I wonder if we’re making this too complicated. If it’s modern experts who’ve declared this Philippe Hayden painting a forgery, and it’s not in current books and online databases, what we need is old art history books from the library. Even if my ankle was up for a trip, my library card has been revoked. Dorian can’t get his own library card, and you’ve got an out-of-state ID. We need someone—or multiple someones—who can check out art history books at the library.”
“It’s Sunday,” Tobias said, “so the kids aren’t at school.”
“If there’s no way I’m going to find the painting itself,” I said, “I need to find the best reproduction I can, to see if I can identif
y the clue that way. With the painting and its modern records stolen—”
“We go old school,” Tobias said.
“Perhaps,” Dorian said, “you have more gargoyle in you than I gave you credit, Zoe Faust. This is a brilliant idea from your little gray cells.”
twenty-six
Like Josephine Tey’s detective who solved a famous historical crime from the confines of his hospital bed, I was stuck on my green velvet couch with my ankle raised on a throw pillow. I hated not being able to walk, but that novel gave me hope that I could still achieve something from my sick bed. With the help of my friends.
Brixton had enlisted his friends Veronica and Ethan to go with him to the library to get as many art history books as they could—books that mentioned the painter Philippe Hayden and his contemporaries as well as those on art forgery.
Later that afternoon, they arrived with bags full of books. Tobias let them in. He’d offered to pick them up in my truck, but the kids insisted they could carry the books in their backpacks on their bikes. Dorian had left snacks on the dining table and then gone to hide in the attic, asking me to be sure to speak loudly so he could hear the conversation.
“Hey, T,” Brixton said to Tobias, giving him a fist bump and dropping a heavy backpack at his feet. “We got as many books as we could before the library closed. They had a limit on how many we could check out, so we couldn’t just take everything.”
“Hi, Ms. Faust,” Veronica said, smiling shyly at me and then Tobias as she set down a backpack of books that looked like it weighed more than she did.
Brixton had been best friends with Veronica Chen Mendoza since they were little. She was taller than either of the boys, though this year they were catching up. When I’d first met her, she’d stood awkwardly in her thin, gangly frame, always wearing ballet flats to look as short as possible. But this year she stood tall, with more confidence, and was wearing shiny gold rain boots with chunky two-inch heels.
“Veronica and Ethan, this is my old friend Tobias Freeman.”
Veronica shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Freeman.”
