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“Elitza told me that tea has hallucinogenic properties.” He chuffs a laugh as he takes a long swig of his energy drink.

“Felled by a flower. Fantastic. Anyway…” I snap my attention back to Mark. “What have you found out?”

Hopefully, my brother has something useful besides barbs at my expense in his thick skull.

“Well, the girls have been tracking the guy for a while. They got close in San Francisco sometime back. I’m summarizing, of course. I presume Patience told you about her run-in, correct?”

Nodding, I motion him to continue.

“Same signature. A marble is left where the girls were taken.” Mark shrugs, as if that provides him with all the information he needs to know.

If only my mind could be satiated as easily.

“I don’t remember seeing anything in the police files about a marble?”

Mark nods and pulls out his phone. “That’s because as per usual, they missed it. The girls were looking for it.”

Holding his phone out to me, I look down at the photo I’ve seen plenty of times before. One of the trails where the first girl went missing. Her backpack lies on its side along the running track.

“I don’t see anything.” Mark begins to open his mouth to answer, when a knock on the door interrupts him. He jumps off the table and scrambles for the door. His shoulder hits the wall and as he turns into the hallway.

Shaking my head, I turn back to examining the photograph. Low voices sound by the front door, and Mark enters the kitchen, his eyes cast to the ground.

I take a breath, preparing to scold my brother for once again ordering food, but the pleading in his eyes has my mouth sealing shut. Mark steps to the side, revealing Elitza. She tilts her head in an almost reptilian manner to survey the kitchen. Her head sways as if agreeing with a thought in her mind as her fingers flick the sides of her shirt.

The heated gaze Mark trains on Elitza nearly makes me groan. A small black ribbon whips rapidly over the edge of her messenger bag. No, not a ribbon. The rounded jaws of a serpent reveal a black tongue flicking in my direction as if assessing my presence. The surprise in my face must show as I take a step back.

“That’s just Silas. He’s impatient,” she says in a low voice that’s nearly a whisper. Reaching into the bag, she lifts the snake out, nuzzling his head with her nose, before draping him across her shoulders.

“Interesting pet.” I nod at the snake.

Elitza observes me as though she isn’t sure if I meant that as a compliment. A sudden wave of fear rushes through my mind. Gerald is loose in the house. The last thing I need is for him to be anywhere in the vicinity of the green monster currently taking up residence upon his aunt’s shoulders.

“You know Gerald is here?”

Elitza nods.

“Yes. I know.” The top of her lip pulls up as she runs her finger lovingly over the head of the snake resting on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry; I brought Gerald’s ball with me. Where is he?”

“He scurried out of here when Mark arrived. Upstairs probably.”

Nodding, she turns to him. “Here, watch Silas while I get Gerald situated.” She lifts the snake off her shoulders and hands him to Mark.

The snake winds his way around Mark’s arm, and I watch as he shows affection to something other than a computer mouse.

Mark snatches his phone from me. His fingers zoom in on the trunk just to the right of the backpack. Handing the phone back to me with a pointed look, he nods towards the screen. Halfway up the trunk jammed in the tree is an onyx marble with a sphere of gold at its center. The golden sphere is marred only by a vertical line cutting the yolk of it like a blade. Elated by the fact that I finally have a clue to go on, my mind races with questions.

I turn to ask Mark a question, but beady eyes appear inches from my face. I take a step back, a bit alarmed by Silas’s closeness. Shrugging off the somewhat creepy sensation of having a snake so close, I go back to observing the photo, when something catches my attention. My eyes bounce from the photo to Silas before realization strikes me. Fuck.

“What does it remind you of?” I snap, shoving the phone in Mark’s hands.

“It looks like a marble in a tree...could be a sniper’s scope…”

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I let out a sigh. It would be nice if my brother stopped playing at the edge of my anger for fifteen fucking minutes.

“No. It looks like your buddy’s eyes,” I say, pointing to Silas.