Ezra drives away, tires squealing slightly. Quinn shares a look with Harvest, wondering if the faint blush on her cheeks is because Ezra’s insinuation has offended her or if she’s playing out the suggestion in her head. He’s not sure which he would prefer, though, to be frank, he is leaning toward the latter.

  Her phone rings, and she fishes it out of her back pocket. “It’s Hazel.” She steps away to take the call.

  Quinn sits down next to Craig. “Well, you’re in luck,” he tells him. “Professor Evans will not be pressing charges.”

  Craig scoffs. “Sure. Luck.”

  Silence settles between them. A blackbird chirps above, flitting from one branch to another. It’s late afternoon, the sun slanting down against their backs as they sit on the park bench just a few feet from the parking lot. Craig has a black eye forming quickly and a cut on his cheekbone, the thin line of blood just enough to make Quinn’s teeth sharpen in response. He never did get his spiced blood from Tabitha’s.

  “Why did you think your wife was having an affair?” asks Quinn.

  Craig sighs as he leans back. He pulls out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and hands it to Quinn. “This was in the mailbox. I, um…” He takes a deep breath. “I realize it was stupid to believe it. I just feel…” He shakes his head.

  “Lost?” supplies Quinn, reading the note. It’s annoyingly mundane. Regular white printer paper with the words “Ezra is fucking your wife” printed in Futura, which somehow makes it all the more crude. A message like this surely requires the default font. Who takes the time to design an anonymous note? “It’s normal to feel like that when someone passes.”

  “What do you know about dealing with death?” he asks, eyes trained unmistakably on Quinn’s fangs.

  “Just because I haven’t yet experienced death for myself, doesn’t mean I haven’t seen my fair share of it. I’ve lived through wars, lifetimes, hundreds of murder cases…” He looks at Craig, at the red-rimmed eyes and the deep etched lines around his downturned mouth. “It’s going to hurt. No matter what. From now until forever.”

  Craig looks up, startled.

  “But it does get easier.”

  The startled look turns disbelieving.

  “It’s different for everyone, but I promise you, it will be easier. One day. When you don’t even realize it. You’ll wake up and feel like you can breathe again.”

  He nods, though Quinn can tell his words haven’t quite made an impact yet. “Was my wife having an affair, Agent Quinn?”

  “I don’t think so,” he says, honestly. “I think someone is trying to muddle the investigation. Point the finger.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Craig sighs again as a bright blue car pulls up. Olive Templeton scowls at Craig as she exits the car. She is clearly not happy at the prospect of looking after a crying baby and her inebriated brother-in-law, but as she helps him into the passenger seat, Quinn sees her squeeze his shoulder and can’t help but think it’ll be good for both of them.

  Grief can tear people apart, but it can also bring them together.

  Quinn watches them drive off as Harvest takes Craig’s recently vacated seat. “Hazel’s figured out that someone tampered with the security camera footage, but without magic,” she says. “And it must be Emily because she’s the only one with access. Have we heard from Angel and Wild?”

  He checks his phone. “Last message from Angel says Emily didn’t answer the door. They’re waiting outside.”

  “Is there a neighbor they can talk to? If they can get someone on record that they’re worried about Emily’s welfare, they might be able to get into the apartment without a warrant.”

  “That’s a good idea, Rosenbloom,” he says, eyebrow arched. He sends the suggestion to Angel, who replies with a thumbs up.

  Silence falls between them. The blackbird is still perched above and it lets out a sharp cry. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Harvest fold her arms across her chest as she lets loose a deep sigh. He’s sure she’s feeling something about seeing Ezra again and, despite her final words to him, he’s not entirely sure it’s anger. They used to be engaged, after all, and he imagines whatever she feels toward Ezra now is complicated at best. “You okay?” he asks.

  “Ezra is a jerk,” she says.

  Maybe there’s more anger than he initially presumed.

  She finally looks over at him, sighing again as if physically letting go of her ex-fiance and whatever emotions he’s brought up inside of her. “What did Craig say anyway?”

  “He received an anonymous note in his mailbox that claimed his wife was having an affair with Ezra. He’d been drinking. Worked himself up into anger.”

  “Is there anything we can get from the note?”

  He shrugs. “It seemed pretty basic. Nondescript paper. Typed. Sealed in a blank envelope.”

  “Hazel might be able to get something. Maybe DNA from the seal.”

  “I’ll leave it with her.” He glances at his watch. “It’s almost five. We should get going. Do you want to go back to the office?”

  “I think I just want to go home,” she says with a small, tired smile, as she follows him to the car.

  She slips into the passenger seat and lets her head fall back against the headrest. Quinn can feel her eyes on him as he makes his way around to the driver’s side.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “The Lighthouse?” he asks, casually, starting the car.

  “No, we can go back to mine. Dominic will be working late, and he always wakes me up when he gets in.”

  “Sure,” he says, wondering if there’s anything to her use of the word “we.” He maneuvers out of the parking lot and down the long road through the pine trees, his thoughts returning to Ezra’s words and Harvest’s red cheeks and the formidable academic who looked unrecognizable at the base of a rose made of fire.

  The silence stretches as Quinn turns onto the main road that will take them north, past the diner and then east, to the townhouse that Harvest shares with Ronan.

  He doesn’t believe there was an affair, with Ezra or otherwise. There’s been no proof of one and as much as he dislikes Ezra, Quinn hasn’t caught any signs of a lie, no frantic heartbeat or increase in perspiration. But is Ezra a killer? Quinn’s been around long enough to know that people can surprise you, but he also can’t pinpoint a motive. He doesn’t think Ezra’s concern for his students would stretch as far as a physical altercation. If Professor Jones’s death was an accident—a shove that ended with her skull connecting with the hard wood of a desk or bookcase—then why transport the body to the Gardens?

  Quinn can feel Harvest’s eyes on him and a few seconds later, she says, “You’re worried.”

  He glances at her briefly. “Not worried. Just…something about this feels…too fitting. Ezra and the fire. Like it’s all planned. Or a distraction. Unless he did it, of course.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You know as well as I do that Ezra isn’t a killer.”

  “But I do recall someone saying that he’d sooner throw a fireball than stab someone.”

  “You’re paraphrasing.”

  “The sentiment remains.”

  “You checked his alibi.” It’s a statement not a question and the fact isn’t lost on Quinn.

  “It was solid,” he admits.

  “Then I think the drug connection is what we should focus on,” she says. “And the Gardens, in particular the guard. There must be something that connects Professor Jones to Emily Iverson.”

  He nods. “I’ll get Drug Squad on it. See if they’ve heard anything related to the school.”

  “Thanks.” She pauses. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her twisting the charm on her necklace around her finger. “And thanks for letting me work this case with you.”

  “Thank Fitz. She assigned you.”

  “Yeah, but you tried to take me off of it.”

  “And look how that ended up.” He aims a quick grin at her. “You’re a stubborn one, Rosenbloom. A weed I can’t get rid of.”

  She laughs. “Better than a dog, I suppose.”

  “I admit the dog comparison was a bit inaccurate,” he says, pulling up to their destination. He parks the car on the street before turning toward her with a smirk, showing a tooth that’s just a little too sharp. “You, at least, don’t shed.”

  She rolls her eyes but laughs just the same, unbuckling her seatbelt. “You want to come inside?”

  Yes, he thinks. Instead, he says, “Is Ronan home?”

  “Afraid to be alone with me?”

  “Terrified,” he says with a grin, though, the word is apt nevertheless. He looks up at the townhouse, a newer building with navy blue siding and white doors. He’s only been to the house a handful of times, mostly to watch a football game with Ronan, though once for an informal housewarming when Harvest moved in a few months ago. He knows her bedroom is on the second floor, the window on the right. He knows Ronan isn’t there, and he knew it from the moment he turned the car off. “He’s just been bugging me about going to trivia. I’m running out of excuses.”

  Her eyes light up. “I bet you’d be great at trivia.”

  “I’m not as useful as you would think.”

  “Oh,” she says, caramel eyes glittering, “I’m sure I can think of a few uses for you, at least.”

  He turns, eyes half-lidded and smirks at her pink cheeks as the full implications of her words settle between them, heavy and soft and crackling like electricity.

  “I better get going,” he says quietly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She nods—a little reluctantly, he thinks with a jolt of something in his chest—and he watches as she lets herself inside the house before he leaves.

  Angel squints up at the vibrantly white building and sighs, as Wild knocks on the pink door for unit 4B. Quinn’s message arrived two minutes ago. After trying the immediate neighbor and getting no response beyond a dog bark, they have made their way downstairs to see if they can get someone—anyone—on record that they are concerned about Emily Iverson, giving the Bureau agents the “probable cause” with which judges and juries seem to be so concerned.

  To be fair, Angel is concerned with them as well. It’s a legal grey area and Angel doesn’t particularly like exploiting it—but they can at least admit that it’s a creative solution to the current issue, which is that there has been no sign of Emily Iverson for at least two days.

  This doesn’t bode well.

  Neither does the downstairs neighbor’s assertion that Emily isn’t home, because he hasn’t heard her footsteps.

  “I can usually hear her moving about,” says the middle-aged witch who introduced himself as Clive. His shoulders are hunched in the way of a man who sits for a living, which he does, as he tells them, inviting them into his tidy, yet cramped unit. “I restore antique watches,” he said, motioning to the dining table which is laden with spare watch parts. To be fair, this is mildly interesting to Angel, but they are not here to learn how watches work. They are here to learn about Emily Iverson.

  “I can even tell which room she’s in,” adds Clive. Angel thinks this sounds a bit creepy, but it works out in their favor when he continues, “Her car is outside though, which is odd.”

  “In what way?” asks Wild.

  “Because I haven’t heard her moving about above me,” he says again. “She paces a lot. Sometimes she watches something on the television. But usually, she is moving.”

  “Could she have gone out of town?”

  “She would have told me. Asked me to collect her mail. Her direct neighbor, Mrs. Fuller would never do that for her. So she asks me. She’s only taken a trip twice since she moved in though. She doesn’t have any family left, you know. That happens with vampires, after all. Never any family. All by herself. It’s a shame.”

  Some people are better off without their family, thinks Angel, though they don’t share this thought out loud. It’s not a feeling from personal experience, after all. Their own family is a bit of a burden, but they love just the same. But Angel is also acutely aware of the toxic relationships that form between relatives.

  “So, would you say that you are worried about her?” asks Wild with a gentle air of concern. “Could she be in the apartment and need assistance?”

  Leave it to Wild to know exactly how to ask a leading question without coming across as biased.

  Clive frowns. “I suppose so. It is out of the ordinary.” He looks nervously up at the ceiling. “She doesn’t often go for walks. And I haven’t heard her moving around since the day before last.”

  “Would you like to file a missing persons report?” asks Wild.

  Clive considers this with a frown, and then nods, slowly and hesitantly—but it’s enough to get started.

  “Do you have a key?” asks Angel.

  “Yes, yes.”

  Key procured, Angel and Wild go back upstairs, the innocuous pink door staring accusingly at them. Angel knocks one last time, just to be sure. When no answer comes, they unlock the door.

  The first thing Angel notices is the smell, but it’s not the smell of death, as Angel half-expected it to be. Another sniff recalculates it as something bitter and acrid, like food turned sour. Wild freezes at the threshold, body rigid in a way Angel has never seen before.

  “Everything okay?” they ask warily.

  “Call Quinn,” he says, stepping around Angel. He makes his way around the squat brown couch that bisects the main living area, looking down at the floor with a sad tilt to his shoulders, wings hanging forlornly. “Emily Iverson is dead.”