I dropped my hand and stared at her in exasperation. She had to be making those up on the spot. Those couldn’t be real names.
“What?” Isabella said. “The wolfsbane potion is illegal, as well as werewolves. Most of my clients wanted to protect their identity.”
“Are you aware of their actual names? What they looked like?”
“No. Most of the time, they’d arrange for me to leave the potion in various locations. Usually we didn’t meet atall. I only knew Frank because he offered to help supply me with the wolfsbane plant I needed.”
I sighed, running my hand over my face. “How did you communicate with them?”
“I had a PO Box that they could mail their requests to. I… I had a false name and ID. Nixie Twinklewing.” She shrugged.
“You didn’t deal with everyone in code,” I said. Frank and Collins and Wickham and a few others were identified.
“Only some asked to work in code. I wrote the names I remembered in the journal to make sure each person received what they needed.”
“So there’s no way to contact these other werewolves?”
She shook her head. “There used to be six of them, but one disappeared a few weeks ago. Never contacted me again. I thought he or she must have moved away. Oh, and three of the clients were a family of werewolves.”
“A family of werewolves?”
“Mm-hmm, two adults and a kid. It's important to know that because you have to brew children’s potions slightly differently.”
I didn’t move. Pastor Collins had mentioned a wild nephew, and how he’d nearly taken off his arm.
I rose. “Okay, think hard. If there’s any other identifying information, any way I can track down the rest of the werewolves, please let me know.”
“Mary, wait. I need to tell you something. I want to find my killer, I do. But if that means exposing those who may not have been involved and are trying to live normal lives… that’s not worth it to me. We need to be… you need to be careful.”
“I understand.”
I repeated Isabella’s words in my head the entire walk home, attempting to figure out a way to locate those werewolves. Isabella wished to safeguard their identities, yet the probability remained that a killer was among them, and I couldn’t back down now.
I also didn’t remove George Wickham and Pastor Collins from my list of suspects, since their appointments were recent and Isabella knew little about them. They may be werewolves that didn’t follow the same anonymous procedures the other werewolves had set in place. Like Frank.
When I arrived home, I was surprised to find Lizzy sitting on my bed and staring at her phone. Her gaze lifted when I entered. “Hi, Mary.”
“Hi?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d come home to discover my sister waiting for me. Duchess hopped onto the bed, sniffed at Lizzy’s phone, and proceeded to look at me with a meaningful stare.
What was that supposed to mean?
“You’re trying to find Isabella’s killer, right?” Lizzy asked.
“Oh, well—” There was no reason to hide it. Her expectant gaze indicated she knew the answer. “What have you found?”
“Nothing of note. But it wasn’t George. I’m certain of it.”
“How could you know that?”
“I wasn’t sure either at first, which is why it took me a few days. I mean, I understood it wasn’t him, but I wanted to verify it wasn’t someone close to him. But he’s not a werewolf, and I was with him that night.”
My head reared back in surprise. “You were?”
“It was the night we met. We went to Club Meryton. Halfway through the evening he checked the time, seemed startled, and made an excuse to leave. I followed him and he met up with Isabella briefly and then”—a small smile curled her lips—“called me out on following him.”
“Wickham said he never met Isabella in person.”
“He said hehadn’tmet her in person. He never mentioned when that changed, which I’m assuming was that night.”
