I stepped inside. Glanced around. A customer browsed the Gothic section. He smiled. I

smiled back. I didn’t see Velvet at the counter. I glanced down the aisle, spotted another

customer busily scanning the ending of a book.

I went to the office. Ted had packed and left. Velvet stood at my desk going through

the drawers.

I halted in the doorway.

She had all my stuff out on the desk top. She was holding the plastic vial of my digoxin

capsules, frowning at it.

“What are you doing?” I asked from behind her. She started.

Cheeks flaming, she stuttered, “I was tidying in here. I found these. They looked like

you might need them.”

Tidying up inside the desk? “Thanks,” I said, holding my hand out for the vial. I kept an

extra bottle in the desk in case I forgot the morning dose, although I didn’t plan on

explaining that to her. “You don’t need to worry about my stuff.”

“I don’t mind,” she said eagerly.

Was she truly that dense?

“Yeah, well, I’d prefer if you stayed out of here.”

She flinched as though I’d slapped her.

“Fine,” she said stiffly. She brushed past me into the shop.

I opened the desk drawers, swept everything in haphazardly. Then I locked the desk.

It seemed far-fetched to suspect her of being an agent in the Deviltry Network, but

then again, she hadn’t come through the temp service – and I hadn’t verified her references

yet.

I could practically hear Jake now.

I closed the office door, pulled her application out of the file cabinet, and spent the

next half hour calling her previous employers.

The two dress boutiques she had worked for would have hired her back in an instant.

She hadn’t worked long at the veterinary clinic, and they didn’t remember her well,

but as the director remarked, that might be a positive.

She checked out.

Chapter Fifteen

If it bleeds, it leads. By late afternoon I had declined an interview with one local news

station and three local papers.

What were they hoping to hear? How I’d always known from the way Angus mixed

Elizabeth Peters and Ellis Peters that one day he’d run amuck? That his bad habit of sticking

price tags smack center in the face of book covers would lead him to ruin?

I ate lunch in the stockroom, catching up on paperwork and listening to the radio. Jake

was correct. Angus’s court-appointed lawyer had been immediately replaced by Martin

Grosser. Grosser, a high-profile defense attorney, worked as a commentator for Court TV,

and pretty much reserved his services for the high and mighty. He did not typically work pro

bono, but there was no way Angus could afford his fees. Not that I got how it was in

Grosser’s interests to represent the latest pretender to Charlie Manson’s throne.

Angus had a bail hearing set for the following day. Personally, I thought he was

probably safer in jail, judging by the tenor of most of the news stories. There was a lot of crap

about Satanism on the air and the signs parents should watch for in their own children –

starting with an interest in heavy metal or New Age rock music and shimmy shimmy ko-ko

bopping right on down the line to drug use and burglary.

There was a startling amount of misinformation out there.

Not that the basic tenets of Satanism weren’t startling all on their own. There were a

few commonsense rules like not complaining about stuff you didn’t need to subject yourself

to, but there were more troubling recommendations, like When walking in open territory,

bother no one. If one bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

Say again? Was that symbolic destruction, or magical destruction, or a practical

application like slicing and dicing classmates?

“Did you know he was a devil worshipper?” Velvet inquired, after we had hung up on

our fourth journalist that day.

No need to ask to whom she referred. “No,” I said shortly. Naturally she would be

curious about her forerunner, but I didn’t want to discuss Angus like he was past tense –

jailed and the key thrown away.

“Did he ever talk about…stuff?”

“No.” That seemed a bit curt, so I added, “He wasn’t a gabby guy.”

“Did he work for you a long time?”

“Not quite a year.” And his predecessor had been murdered. I was going to have to take

another look at the benefits package I offered my employees.

“I used to know a girl involved in that stuff.”

“Good friend?”

“No,” she murmured. “It’s hard to get close to people like that.”

“Why do you think that is?”

She laughed. I’d never heard her laugh before. It came out unexpectedly shrill. “I don’t

know! They don’t want to be close to other people. They don’t need them.”

“It’s a lonely way to live.”

“Being alone is not the same as lonely.”

“That’s true.” I handed her the list of reserved and requested books that had arrived

with that day’s shipment. “What finally happened to your friend?”

She shrugged inside her navy cardigan. “Nothing. I lost track of her. Do you think

What’s-his-name is guilty?”

“No.”

She smiled. She had small, white teeth – like milk teeth. “But you never know, do

you?”

“No,” I said, eyeing her plump back as she turned away with the list. “You never do.”

* * * * *

Friday morning I had a call from Bob Friedlander.

“I need to see you right away. Can you drop by the hotel?” He sounded sober and a lot

more reasonable than the last time we’d spoken. Still I was wary.

“Maybe this afternoon. We’re busy this morning.”

“It’s important that we talk. It’s about Gabe.”

“Shouldn’t you call the police?”

He said hastily, “It’s not like that. I just thought you’d be interested. Why don’t you

come for lunch?”

I glanced at Velvet and the line at the counter. “I can’t do lunch. I can try for later.

Maybe around three or so.”

“Okay, that will work. I’ll see you then.” He put the phone down with a clatter.

An instant later the phone rang again. I picked up.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Guy inquired in that lazy semi-English accent. I

heard the smile in his voice. And there was an answering smile in my own.