“That’s against the law. And it’s icky.”
Diesel yanked me into the elevator and pushed the 4 button. “It feels like the right thing to do.”
“Not to me.”
“You’re the junior partner. You only have a fifteen percent vote.”
“Why am I the junior partner? I’m just as powerful as you are.”
The elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor, and Diesel shoved me out into the hall. “In your dreams.”
“You can find empowered people, and I find empowered objects. That seems pretty equal to me.”
“Honey, I have a whole laundry list of enhanced abilities. And let’s face it, you make cupcakes.”
I felt my mouth drop open.
Diesel grinned down at me. “Would it help if I said they’re really great cupcakes?”
“You’ve eaten your last.”
Diesel wrapped an arm around my shoulders and hugged me into him. “You don’t mean that.” He removed the crime scene tape sealing 4B’s door, placed his hand over the dead bolt, and the bolt slid back, demonstrating one of the laundry list abilities. Diesel could unlock anything. He turned the knob, we stepped into Reedy’s apartment, and Diesel locked the door again.
It was small but comfortably furnished, with an overstuffed couch and two chairs. Large coffee table, loaded with books, a few pens, a stack of papers held together with a giant rubber band. Flat screen television opposite the couch. Desk to the side of the smashed patio door. We peeked into the kitchen. The appliances were old but clean. Small table and two chairs. Coffee mug in the sink. There was one bedroom and one bath. Nothing extraordinary about either.
“What are we doing here?” I asked Diesel.
“Looking for something.”
“That narrows it down.”
We migrated to the bookcase by Reedy’s desk. He had a wide-ranging assortment of classics, some biographies, some historical fiction, and a large poetry collection that took up an entire shelf. Lovey’s book wasn’t in the collection. I went to Reedy’s bedroom and looked around. No book of sonnets. No sonnets in the bathroom or kitchen.
“Nothing seems out of place,” I said to Diesel, “but I don’t see Lovey’s sonnets.”
“CSI has already gone through here collecting prints and whatever they think might be useful,” Diesel said. “I don’t see a cell phone or computer. I guess they could have taken the book, but it doesn’t seem likely. They’d have no reason to believe it was important. It’s more likely the killer took the book.”
I walked to the coffee table and stared down at a Shakespeare anthology that had to weigh at least fourteen pounds. The cover was faded. The pages were dog-eared and yellow with age. A lined legal pad had been used to hold a place in the book. I flipped the book open and scanned the page.
“Reedy has this anthology turned to one of Shakespeare’s sonnets,” I said to Diesel. “And he’d taken some notes on it. He copied the line Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines and he wrote Key to Luxuria Stone and underlined it twice. And then farther down the page he has a list of professional papers and books. Lovey’s book is the last on the list.”
Diesel looked over my shoulder at Reedy’s notes. “Luxuria is Latin for lust.”
“You can read Latin?”
“Superbia, Acedia, Luxuria, Ira, Gula, Invidia, Avaritia. The seven deadly sins. That’s the extent of my Latin.”
“Do you think Reedy was killed because he was researching the Luxuria Stone?”
“People have chased after the stones for centuries, going on nothing more than blind faith that the stones exist, and they’ve done some horrific things to get them. It wouldn’t surprise me if Reedy was the latest victim in a long history of victims.”
We went silent at the sound of someone trying the doorknob. There was some scratching and jiggling. A pause. More scratching and jiggling. Another pause. Someone was trying to pick the lock and not having any success. Diesel went to the door, peeked out the security peephole, and turned back to me, smiling.
“It was Hatchet,” Diesel said. “It looks like he’s leaving.”
Steven Hatchet is a soft lump of dough with red scarecrow hair. He’s sworn allegiance to Wulf, dresses in full Renaissance regalia, and is off-the-chart crazy. He’s in his late twenties and is the only other human known to have an ability similar to mine. Supposedly, we can sense energy locked inside common objects. At first glance, it sounds like fantasyland to be able to do this, but I don’t imagine it’s much different from a farmer using a divining rod to find water underground. Although honestly, I’m not sure I believe in divining rods.
We took one last tour of the apartment, and Diesel scooped up the anthology, the pad, and the folders.
“You can’t take all that stuff,” I said. “That’s stealing.”
“Think of it as borrowing,” Diesel said. “Someday I might bring them back.”