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EIGHTEEN
Decima
The document Antheasent me was a list of minerals and other substances with figures and percentages that didn’t have much significance to me. I had no idea whether what I was looking at was normal or concerning. Thankfully Anthea was sharp enough to realize that if I couldn’t analyze the soil myself, I also couldn’t analyze the analysis, so she gave me a call after I’d had a chance to look over the report.
“First off, there’s nothing especially strange here,” she said, getting right to the point. “I wouldn’t blink twice at this sample if it came from a routine check rather than an analysis prompted by current suspicions.”
I only partly relaxed at that remark. “But there’s something that would give you pause because of the circumstances?”
“Yes. They don’t prove any sort of crime, but they’re things I’d keep in mind as I weighed the other evidence.” She took a brisk breath. “First, you can see the ash content listed. That’s somewhat higher than average, but not bizarrely so. Some people use ash instead of lime to improve the soil, and mostly it appears to be wood ash. Do they have a fireplace in the house or a fire pit?”
I brought up the image of the property in my mind’s eye. “They have a fire pit next to the pool.”
“Then it’s probably from their own fires, not something they had to go out of their way to get. Totally normal, if a tad old-fashioned. But the results suggest it’s not all from wood.”
A prickle ran over my skin. “What do you mean?”
“You see the calcium level? That’s again not incredibly high, but unusual for a flower garden. In my line of work, I most commonly see levels in that range when a body’s been burned. From the bones.”
“A body?” I repeated, unable to hold back my shock. That was the last thing I’d have imagined going into my mother’s garden.
“Don’t get too panicked,” Anthea said with a light laugh. “As I said, it wasn’t a tremendous amount. There are totally innocent explanations, like the cremation of a family pet whose ashes were scattered there. Or possibly smaller animals could have died under the ground and decomposed enough that their remains mixed with the ash. It isn’t a red flag, more like a yellow one. Something to be aware of if other pieces start to point you in a worrying direction.”
“Okay,” I said, my stomach sinking. Her report put me basically back in the same place I’d been before, knowing something might be wrong but not being able to prove it one way or the other. I resisted the urge to fidget and had to confirm, “But if you saw these results from a garden no one thought was a problem, you wouldn’t assume anything bad had gone down.”
“Not at all. It’s absolutely possible that there’s nothing at all… untoward going on. But I thought you should be aware of the possibilities. Are you satisfied that your favor has been repaid?”
Her tone had gotten brisk again—probably she had plenty of other things to take care of rather than reassuring me.
“Yes,” I said quickly. “Thank you for taking the time to explain.” I didn’t want her to think I was ungrateful. She was clearly good at what she did—who knew if I might need her help again?
Good will and personal opinion were their own kind of currency in both my father’s world and the criminal circles I was learning to navigate.
I set down the phone and stared at the stone wall, barely registering the lingering cocoa scent in the air from the mugs Garrison had made before he’d left. How much of a chance was there that anything other than a pet had been cremated and tossed in the Maliks’ garden? Even if they’d done something wrong, I couldn’t wrap my head around them being murderers. They hated petty thieves—how would they have been able to justify stealing people’s lives?
But the Hunter had known I’d turn up something revealing in the soil. He’d specifically pointed me to the garden. It might not have been terribly unusual, but it’d been unusual all the same.
There could be other explanations that were unnerving but not as far as murder, right? Or, hell, maybe the Hunter had planted that evidence somehow.
I really didn’t know, and that fact made me itchy.
Julius had gone off to the other end of the room to consult something on his phone while I’d talked to Anthea. When I got up, he glanced over at me. “Going somewhere?”
I rolled my shoulders, trying to work the restlessness out of me. “I think I’m going to drop in on my family. They’re not expecting me. Maybe I’ll find out more if they’re unprepared.” Blaze still hadn’t picked up anything from their electronic communications, but a political family would probably be savvy enough not to say anything at all incriminating where it could be digitally recorded. I had no idea what they said to each other when I wasn’t around.
Julius inclined his head. “Do you need anything from me?”
I shot him a quick smile. “No, but thank you. I should be back pretty soon.”
I summoned an Uber and spent the entire ride stewing over what I’d heard. When we approached the house, I had the driver drop me off a block away so I wouldn’t draw my family’s notice. My father would be at work now—he’d talked about the meetings he had to get to after our brunch—but there almost always seemed to be at least a couple of Maliks at or around the house. This late in the afternoon, my mother should be back from her work, and Carter didn’t have a summer job.
I’d only just set off toward the house, keeping an eye out for any family members who might spot me, when a woman wearing a courier vest sped up next to me on a bike.
“Rachel Malik?” she said, sounding a little breathless.
I stiffened. “Yes.”
“This is for you.” She thrust a small package into my hands and raced off again before I could ask her a single question.
