CHAPTER 50
Watersday, Maius 26
Monty rubbed his hands over his face and looked around the efficiency apartment.
Long day. Long, terrible day. There would be physical and emotional repercussions. There would be the potential for reprisals. Local members of the Humans First and Last movement were loudly blaming the Others for the deaths, injuries, and destruction of property. If the Others had stayed in their designated piece of the city, where they belonged—if they belonged in any part of Lakeside—the incident wouldn’t have occurred, turning a friendly place like the stall market into a battleground. Mayor Rogers had waffled when interviewed, refusing to acknowledge that members of the HFL movement had incited the conflict and had been responsible for the shooting death of a police officer.
Nicholas Scratch, on the other hand, hadn’t waffled. Speaking from a safe location in Toland, he had been heavy on condolences for the families of the slain and emphasized how the HFL movement was rallying the whole Northeast Region to provide emotional support and physical assistance to those families. And he laid the blame on the terra indigene in the Lakeside Courtyard for making the people at the stall market feel so threatened, they had lashed out. And while it was regrettable that a police officer had been killed, along with several other humans caught in a senseless fight, such a reaction should have been expected.
The most chilling statement was made by Elliot Wolfgard when reporters cornered him after a meeting with the mayor.
“The earth natives who reside in Courtyards are property managers, the middlemen between humans and the rest of the terra indigene. We may speak for the earth natives who live in the surrounding wild country, but they are Thaisia’s final voice, and they will decide what happens next.”
And they, whoever they were, could not be bargained with, because anyone who managed to find them didn’t survive. That was assuming humans could communicate with them at all.
Tess had done a fair job of putting all the personal belongings back where she’d found them. If he’d walked in unprepared, he would have known someone had gone through his things, would have sensed differences before he searched out the confirming details. Something folded a little bit off or put in the drawers in a different order. Since he’d been told the Others had taken his and Lizzy’s things and then put them back, he’d given drawers and closet no more than a cursory look.
Going into the little kitchen, Monty cracked open a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a healthy glass. He didn’t drink much, but tonight he wanted something to smooth off the edges, especially since Lizzy wasn’t here.
When he called the Denbys to tell them about Lawrence MacDonald, Eve had insisted on Lizzy staying with them overnight. There were unanswered questions about the attempted break-ins. He didn’t doubt there had been an attempt, just as he didn’t think the timing of the break-in and stall-market attack was coincidence. But Boo Bear and the jewels were gone. The people in Toland who were involved with Elayne’s death had to know that. He didn’t think Captain Felix Scaffoldon was directly involved in Elayne’s murder, but he’d bet the captain was keeping someone in the information loop.
Which meant there was still a piece missing. Someone was still searching for something and thought it had reached Lakeside. Could some of the jewels have been hidden in something besides Boo Bear?
Monty stood absolutely still, letting that thought coil around him.
Something in a story he’d been reading to Lizzy before he’d been transferred to Lakeside. Pages of a book had been cut to form a secret compartment. She’d been excited when he’d read that, had wanted to turn one of her own books into a hiding place for secrets. He’d intended to look for a used book so that she wouldn’t ruin one of her new books. But she hadn’t brought any books with her, just . . .
“The diary,” Monty whispered. He set the whiskey glass down and rushed over to the dresser, pawing through the drawers. Why bring a diary if Lizzy had lost the key? Unless the diary wasn’t being used as a diary but was, in fact, another hiding place, and Lizzy had never been the person who had the key.
He checked the closet, checked the suitcases, checked under the bed and behind the few bits of furniture in the apartment. He checked under the mattress, shook out all the bath towels and extra linen. When he was done, he searched it all again.
Then he sat on the narrow bed and thought for a long time.
Tess had returned everything except the locked diary.
CHAPTER 51
Earthday, Maius 27
It was early morning when Tess walked into one of the Courtyard school’s classrooms to wait for Nyx. No one would be there to interrupt them or ask questions. Equally important, the school had been built in the interior of the Courtyard, so humans didn’t have even a glimpse of it from the surrounding city streets. Most humans didn’t know it existed.
Yesterday’s attempted break-in didn’t make sense. Trying to snatch Boo Bear in order to reclaim the jewels that had been hidden inside him would have made sense. The Sanguinati made it a point to learn about things that had value in the human parts of the world, and Nyx had told her that the jewels that had been concealed in Boo Bear were worth a lot of money.
But Boo Bear had been handed over to the Toland police, and the bear had been stitched up by the Wolfgard bodywalker so that no one would suspect that anyone had poked around inside the bear’s body. Thieves shouldn’t be looking for sparklies among Montgomery’s possessions. Not anymore.
No, this wasn’t about jewels. This was about secrets hidden inside a pink book.
Nyx flowed into the room as her typical blended form of smoke and human. “I brought the book.”
“Now we just need . . . ,” Tess began. She stopped and turned toward the door. Her hair began to coil in anticipation of dealing with the noisy intruder. Then she blinked in surprise as the Courtyard’s dominant enforcer entered the room.
Blair Wolfgard usually moved quietly because it was his nature, but he wasn’t making an effort to approach with any stealth as he walked in and shook a small toolbox.
“Tools aren’t that easy to acquire right now, so I’m not handing them over unless I know what you intend to do with them,” he growled.
“You don’t have to hand over anything,” Tess said. “You just have to open the lock on this book. That’s why I told you to bring your tiny tools.”
Nyx tipped her head. “That sounded nasty, but I’m not sure why.”
The Wolf showed his teeth and held out his hand. “Give me that thing.”
Nyx handed him the pink book with gold stars on the cover.
Blair fingered the catch. “Where’s the key?”
“Don’t know,” Tess replied. “That’s why you’re here with your tiny tools. We need to know what’s in that book.”
“Why?”
“Because Meg saw a pink book with gold stars that is connected to a secret. And because someone is still searching for something that the Lizzy brought with her.”
“You care if anyone knows we opened it?” Blair asked.
“No.”
He selected a tool and broke the lock.
Good thing we aren’t interested in locking it again, Tess thought when Blair handed her the somewhat mangled book, picked up his toolbox, and left.
Opening the book, Tess studied the writing. “I can’t picture an adult using a pink book with gold stars, but this writing doesn’t look like a child’s.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Nyx agreed. “But female, based on the human handwriting I’ve seen.”
“Time to find out what it says.” Tess settled a hip on the teacher’s desk and started to read.