Nothing.
I rose and placed both hands on the top of the cabinet and leaned in.
If Hunter drugged us, he would have known to get rid of the evidence. Washed the glasses—obviously. Throw away the bottle? Maybe… but probably not here. He most likely ditched it at the hotel last night.
“Shit,” I said under my breath, looking down to the sake set I’d given him. Under the corner of the box was the tiniest amount of white powder that had gotten stuck in the decorative groove carved into the cabinet.
For curiosity’s sake, I pulled open the drawer and found a tiny plastic bag. In it? More powder.
“Uncle Silas!” I screamed. “Uncle Silas!”
“Good heavens, child!” Uncle Silas materialized in front of me. “I thought we agreed that is not the proper way to get my attention.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry.” I held up the baggie. “Do you have any idea what this is?”
“Open it, dear.”
I did, and he dipped his translucent pinky in, then tasted it, smacking his lips together.
“Salty… soapy…” His brows lifted. “Why in heaven’s name do you have GHB?”
“Fuck.” I closed the baggie and threw it back in the drawer, slamming it shut. “Hey, have you noticed anything strange about Hunter? I know you lurk about when you think I don’t notice.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Uncle Silas, come on, I can’t handle any more lies right now.”
“Well, my dear…” He put his hands behind his back and floated around the study. “Not odd, really. But usually when he leaves, he takes that backpack with him.” Uncle Silas pointed over to Hunter’s backpack in the corner.
“Yeah, what about it? I take a bag with me whenever I go somewhere.”
“It’s not the bag itself, Magdalene. It’s the contents.”
I moved over and picked it up. “There’s hardly anything in it.”
Slowly, I unzipped the bag and reached inside. My fingers touched something cool, firm, yet flexible, with a string attached. I pulled it out.
“Goddamn it!”
“It’s a little late for Halloween, if I do say so myself.”
“It’s the fucking mask from my visions.” Cold moved through me from the chest out, all the way to my fingertips.
“The what?”
The pieces had been there the whole time. I’d just refused to look at them. The morgue visions crashed back in, sharp and sudden, every detail I’d tried to file away. “Hunter is the one killing all those girls, and this proves it.”
“Darling, just because he owns a mask… doesn’t meanhe’sthe killer. I’m sure they sell thousands of this exact mask in Massachusetts alone.MaskTokhas become quite the phenomenon.”
I shook my head. “What the hell do you know aboutMaskTok?” I blinked, holding up my hands. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. I have to tell Graham.”
Graham
God, she pissed me off. Sheknewit wasn’t a dream last night. It was right there in her eyes. The only way I could think to prove it was to get a test for whatever the fuck he used to drug us. But even then, would she believe me? Hunter had her under his own spell—one that shut off her rational thinking and twisted it into some sick form of loyalty built on guilt.
“What happened after you took your twenty, Locke?” Nettles leaned back in his chair across the desk from me tossing his baseball between both hands. “You never clocked out last night.”
“I got fuckin’ drugged is what happened.” My leg shook.
