Page 61

“Good morning.”

I blink. Charlie, in full uniform, sits exactly where Peggy sat—was that yesterday?—and just as close.

“How long have you been here?” My mouth feels sticky and a mass of dark hair catches in my periphery, just off my temple, and I sense how awful I must look.

“Only a few minutes.”

“Did you come visit yesterday?” He turns red. “You did, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Peggy called the station as soon as you got here. And . . .”

Peggy’s words return to me. “I got sick on you.”

“Then you fell asleep holding my hand.” He chuckles. “Don’t think on it.”

“How can I not?” I moan. “I missed our evening. I missed meeting your family. And I got sick all over you.”

He chuffs, small and quiet. “There will be other dinners. I told them you caught a bug, if that’s okay. I didn’t know what else to say.”

I try to push myself up but can’t, so I quit trying. “That’s good. But tell them I’m sorry.”

“I will.”

“Did I try to solve a case for you yesterday? Did I ask you about one?”

“You did.” Charlie settles back against the chair. “When you insisted, I told you about how Mr. Mullins lost two sheep and you determined, due to the full moon, that werewolves were the culprits. Then you were taken ill.”

I clamp a hand over my eyes. “I had a dream about that too. Werewolves, really?”

He chuckles.

“That’s humiliating, and I’m sure I ruined your uniform. I’m terribly sorry.”

“You could hardly help it.” He shrugs. “I was pretty scared, Gemma. That felt, still feels, quite serious.”

I can’t reply. I can’t look away.

“Gemma?” Charlie pauses. “What did happen? Peggy says you slipped, but your injury is not consistent with that. If you did I’d expect that massive cut to be on the back of your head rather than the top.”

A small smile escapes. He is a good detective, despite what he thinks, and getting better. “Someone hit me. A man. He left me in a closet. I woke and opened the door. That’s when Peggy found me and pulled me out of the house.”

“A closet? Where?”

“In the Kidlington house. The one I told you about.”

He scoots forward. The chair legs scrape against the floor. “You were inside? Did someone let you in?” He pauses. “Or did you break in?”

I swallow to buy myself time, time to come up with a story, or a— I cringe. I’m digging about for a lie. I don’t want to lie to Charlie. “I had a key. I found it near the back door so, while nothing was technically broken, I did break in.”

“Gemma.” He sighs, sounding both weary and exasperated. “What did he look like?”

“I didn’t see him.” Suddenly it feels like I’m there again, feeling him, smelling him, despite never seeing him. “He was close. Big. And he smelled sour, like unwashed and sweaty. I would say I only reached as tall as his chest, but that’s only from a sense of his shadow. He was right behind me, then . . . nothing.”

Charlie drops back into the chair. I feel the loss of his closeness and warmth. “You know this means you have to stop, Gemma. No more baking lessons, no more snooping around, nothing. You have to let the police handle this.”

This time, regardless of pain, I push myself up. “No one is going to believe me, you know that. There’s no proof.” I reach for his arm, resting on the edge of the bed. “But there was, Charlie. There were stacks and stacks of papers with formulas, numbers, names, all sorts of stuff. But they’re gone now. When Peggy helped me out, there was a fire dying in the grate and the papers were gone.”

“I need to bring in the chief.”