Page 11 of Hawk & Sparrow

“I’m sure,” said Vesper. “He was lying there, but he was breathing and definitely uninjured. I checked his pulse myself.” She stepped closer. “I knew he’d been drinking because there was a bottle of champagne near his feet, and…” She frowned. “It’s gone.”

“What?”

“The champagne bottle. It’s gone.”

“Miss Evans.” Maximilian sounded strained now. “Did you see anyone else in this maze after you found Francis?”

Vesper went over the night’s events in her mind. She remembered an uncomfortable feeling, the sense that she was being watched. Had the person who’d done this to Francis Gladwell been hidden somewhere, waiting? The idea was unsettling, but perhaps that’d just been her imagination. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.

“He and I were the only ones here,” she said. “I didn’t see anyone else until I found you.”

The sorcerer shook his head. “This isn’t good.” He steepled his fingers and began to pace, muttering to himself. Vesper watched him until the question on the tip of her tongue escaped her.

“Why were you in the maze tonight, Mr. Kite?”

Maximilian looked up. “Pardon?”

“You were the host of this exhibition,” Vesper went on. “Why leave the party and come into the maze in the middle of it?”

Maximilian’s expression turned cool and imperious. “That’s hardly your business.”

Vesper had just opened her mouth to argue when she was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. She turned, and her heart sank.

Three uniformed police officers had just entered the courtyard, and she recognized the one leading them instantly. He was short and bald, with a slightly ruddy complexion. As if he sensed her discomfort, Chief Stettner’s stern gray eyes went straight to her.

“Miss Evans?” Basalton’s most senior law enforcement officer sounded equal parts wary and exasperated. “What on earth are you doing here?” His eyes cut from her to Francis’s body. “And what’s happened?”

Maximilian stepped forward. “This is Francis Gladwell. He was the guest of honor at an exhibition taking place at the museum tonight. Miss Evans and I just found him. I was the one that sent a distress signal.”

Chief Stettner was already moving. Vesper couldn’t see the police chief’s expression as he knelt and took the inventor’s pulse. When he stood again and turned to face them, he was ashen. He addressed the officers who’d come with him.

“Send for additional personnel, and a coroner,” he ordered. “This man has been murdered, and this maze is now a crime scene.”

FIVE

SATURDAY, 5TH OF NOVEMBER—8:46 A.M.

It was the frigid morning air that finally pulled Vesper from deep sleep.

She hugged her knees against her chest, shivering as the cold seeped through her quilt and into her bones. Slowly, she sat up in bed.

Her flat was still mercifully dim. The thin curtains drawn across its sole window allowed only a sliver of pale blue light to interrupt the dark. Vesper massaged the back of her neck and stretched. For a few blissful seconds, the haze of her mind kept the events of last night at bay. Then it all came back.

Francis Gladwell was dead. Murdered.

The hours after his death were muddled, a blur of camera flashes and shiny black police uniforms. At some point, someone had placed a blanket over her shoulders and directed her to stand at the edge of the maze’s courtyard while an officer took her statement. By the time another officer escorted her home, it had been nearly eleven o’clock. Even in sleep though, she hadn’t found relief. In her dreams, the dead inventor crawled toward her, bloodied and bathed in lurid red light. Vesper shook the image from her head, and rose.

Her apartment above the Basalton Globe’s office was modest—furnished with a twin bed, a kitchenette, and a shabby armchair. She knelt at the woodstove in its corner and kindled a small fire, rubbing her hands until feeling returned to them and her kettle was warmed. She poured a cup of chamomile tea, sipped, then took several breaths in and out. With the warmth came clarity. What would Tom, her editor, say if he was here?

Speculation without corroboration isn’t journalism, it’s gossip. A real reporter records verified information. Stick to the facts.

Vesper tried to pull out the facts, what she’d seen last night with her own two eyes. She pictured the Basalton Museum of Art’s atrium in all its splendor; the excitement on Mr. Gladwell’s face as he’d presented his invention. She imagined the brilliant dragon from his demonstration, remembered the heat on her face. She even thought about Maximilian Kite, and the brief discomfort that had clouded his face as he’d stood beside the inventor onstage.

The facts. Vesper forced herself to refocus. No speculation, just the facts.

Her satchel was propped against the foot of the bed, but it felt strangely light when she picked it up. A dull sense of dread prickled through her body as she flipped open its front flap and peered inside it.

Her notebook wasn’t there.