And there, attached to one side, was a steel box with a lock on it.

  Her heart stuttered. Stealing had often been a game to Charlie, one where her cleverness was pitted against that of the person who’d hidden the prize. Solving their puzzle was the goal, and the thrill. But as her hands reached for the box, what she felt was uneasiness. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the darkness itself was watching her, waiting to strike.

  Charlie pulled the box free, sending two of the magnets falling down the flue. They made a clanging sound that she hoped wasn’t amplified inside.

  For a moment, she went still, listening.

  No sound from inside. Was it Adam? Certainly, he’d been angry enough to break in and trash her place, looking for Knight Singh’s book. But she didn’t think he had the patience to wait more than twenty-four hours for her to return.

  Vince, however, had fallen asleep in front of the television like that loads of times.

  Maybe he was ready to tell her the truth. Or maybe he’d come up with a fresh bouquet of lies. He wouldn’t know what Salt told her, or what she’d ferreted out on her own. He certainly wouldn’t know that she’d already stolen his prize. It’d be satisfying to explain how wrong he’d been about her and Adam.

  It made her a little giddy to think of having another fight with him. It made her want to put on lipstick.

  Carefully, she crawled back to the ladder and slid down, box cradled against her, wincing at the sound of the wood creaking.

  Quietly, she eased to the ground and padded through her neighbor’s yard, staying away from the light. At her car, she stuffed the metal box under the front seat.

  What she ought to do was leave. Go back to her mother’s motel room and try to jimmy the lock on the box. But the combination of hoping for Vince and hating Adam lured her.

  She crept back to the house. It was odd to evaluate her own place like a burglar. But the first thing she tried was the first thing she always tried—the front door. She turned the knob and found that it was unlocked.

  Posey might have left it open when she ran out. And Adam could have broken in another way and then used the front door if he’d left and come back. But the simplest explanation was that Vince had used his key to let himself in and hadn’t locked up after since he expected Charlie home later that night, after she’d finished work.

  She reached up to smother the sound of the bell on the screen door as she eased it open. She slid through the kitchen, pausing to pick up a heavy pan with little pieces of burnt noodle attached to it, just in case.

  A few steps more, and she stopped in the doorway to the living room. It was the smell that hit her first, the odor of decaying flesh that made her gag. There was something dark smeared on the walls.

  The body on the couch was too still. Dread turned her limbs to lead.

  Vince.

  Her trembling hand went to the light switch and everything became obscenely clear.

  Writing in blood, thick and clotted, covered the walls. In some places caught with hair. The words continued high up on the walls, where a human hand couldn’t reach.

  On the couch, Adam’s body lay cracked open, ribs exposed. Charlie stared at the open cave of his chest and the too-dry mess of his insides. At the tattered sail of his shadow, flying off the mast of his feet.

  Her gaze went back to the walls. Over and over. The same word in finger-painted letters: RED. RED. RED. RED.

  * * *

  Charlie was still in that doorway when the police arrived. She wasn’t sure she remembered calling them. She didn’t remember how long she’d been standing there.

  “You,” one of them said, hand on his gun. “Drop what you’re holding. Hands in the air.”

  She discovered she was still gripping the pan from the kitchen. She let go. Distantly, she heard it clang as it hit the floor, but that felt very far away. Outside, the strobe of blue and red lights added another layer to the surrealness of the moment. She raised her hands.

  It wasn’t that Charlie hadn’t seen a corpse before. She’d seen two in the last week. But this belonged to someone she knew. Someone who’d been murdered in her living room. His blood soaking her secondhand couch, which they were going to have to throw out. The rug would have to go too. Maybe she should just burn the whole place to the ground and let her landlord get the insurance money.

  Another cop—a woman—crossed to Charlie and patted her down. The buzz of radios in the background and muttered conversation made it hard to focus.

  “This is your place?” the cop demanded, obviously having asked the question twice. “Are you the one that called this in?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Charlie said. “Yes.”

  “Did you kill him?” one of the others asked her.

  Charlie laughed, which wasn’t a great look. “You think I could do all this?”

  They exchanged glances.

  “Did you?” the woman asked.

  “No. I just got off work. My sister and I were at our mom’s place all yesterday.” She kept her hands up and open.

  A photographer from forensics came in. At least Charlie thought they were from forensics. She wondered if someone would have to climb up the walls and get those invisible hairs. She wondered if the police would recommend someone from Vince’s company to clean this all up once the body was gone.

  “Did you know the deceased?”

  She nodded. “Adam Lokken.”

  “He live here? Your neighbor said a man shared the place with two young women.”

  Charlie considered what she could say. No matter what name she gave, his prints were all over the house. The minute they ran them, they’d discover Edmund Carver wasn’t dead. And they would believe he was the killer. “That was my boyfriend, Vincent. But he moved out.”

  “Last name?”

  “Damiano,” she told them, wondering if such a person even existed.

  “What’s with the message?” one of them asked. “Do you know what it means?”

  RED.

  The color of blood. The name a boy gave his shadow.

  Never name it. Raven’s words echoed in her head. But children named everything. They named teddy bears and goldfish in duck ponds and pieces of gum on the sidewalk. Of course Vince was going to name his shadow.

  Perhaps it had come looking for him, like the shadow in the fairy tale. Perhaps it had mistaken Adam for Vince and then became enraged when it realized it had the wrong person. Or it killed Adam for Vince since he had a grievance. Or it had come looking for her, and saw an opportunity for some fresh blood.

  And then it signed its work.

  “I don’t know,” Charlie told them.

  One of them walked behind her, jerking one of her hands behind her back. She felt the cold metal of cuffs. “I think you better come with us. We’ll go down to the station and you can make your statement.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Charlie asked.

  “I’m giving you a ride.” He was a short guy with broad shoulders and dark, curly hair. His badge was shiny. He told her his name was Officer Lupo as he led her out to the car and pushed her head down as he got her into the back seat. Neighbors had come out of their houses in bathrobes to check out the drama. Charlie wanted to wave, but she was cuffed.

  The big brick building housing both the police station and the fire department was only a few blocks away. It wasn’t long before she was being led into the station and put in a back room with a big table. They asked her for her fingerprints for “elimination purposes” and she let them press each finger into a pad and then onto a paper. They asked for her license and she handed it over. They wanted her to unlock her cell phone, and she did that too. Mostly, they left her alone in the room, coming in once or twice to check on her.

  After about forty-five minutes, Detective Juarez rolled in, looking as though he’d just been roused from bed, and not happy about it.

  “You again?” he said when he saw her.

  She didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

  “Does this have something to do with what happened in Rapture?” he asked.

  Charlie shrugged. “If it doesn’t, I guess I’ve got the devil’s own luck.”

  “What was this Adam guy doing in your house?” He looked at his notes. “You knew him, right?”

  If you want a lie to pass the sniff test, it helps to put your worst foot forward. “He was cheating on his girlfriend with me. After he broke it off, I told her. Day before yesterday, he came after me in a hospital parking lot and beat me up pretty bad.”

  “Did you make a police report?” he asked, studying her face.

  “I guess I should have.” She didn’t doubt he believed her about getting knocked around, though. The makeup she’d done was okay, but she’d been wearing it for hours and she was sure that her bruises were showing through. And nothing could disguise the swelling.

  After that, someone brought her a coffee, but that was the only consideration they gave her. The questions went on and on, doubling in on themselves. Most of them were about Vince, but she was asked about Doreen too, Charlie’s hours at work, when she’d come home, what she’d touched. Over and over, Charlie asked if she was under arrest.

  Finally, they said she could go. Told her to stay away from the house, since it was an active crime scene. Cautioned her to stay by her phone, that they would contact her again.

  “There’s too much weird shit in the world,” Officer Lupo said to one of the other cops, under his breath. “Not all of it needs to be washing up around here.”

  Charlie was on her way out when she passed Doreen, wearing pajamas, a trench coat, and UGG boots. Her face was blotchy and tearstained. When she saw Charlie, her eyes seemed to roll back in her head.

  “You,” she said, her voice so guttural that it seemed like she was making sounds more than words. “You did this.”

  Charlie wanted to snap back at her, but it wasn’t fair. Doreen had loved Adam, and even if he had been terrible, he was dead. “Look, I’m sorry that he—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, Doreen lunged. Nails raked across Charlie’s cheek.

  A cop grabbed Doreen and hauled her back, although she kicked like she thought she could get free. “Calm down,” he said. “Jesus, lady.”

  “Ow,” Charlie said, putting her hand to her face. “Fuck.”

  “This is because of you,” Doreen shouted. “You were supposed to help him. You were supposed to bring him home.”

  Hard to be too sympathetic when he’d been hanging around waiting to hurt her, but she saw Doreen’s point. Adam might have screwed over Balthazar and Doreen both, but Charlie had certainly screwed him.

  “You are the devil, corrupting everything you touch,” Doreen shouted. “Remember that favor my brother was supposed to do for you? Well, it’s undone. You’re in default.”

  Charlie shrugged, turning to head toward the doors. “You can’t threaten me with what’s already happened. You got him to do that the minute I gave you the ring.”

  Doreen, held back by two policemen, still managed to spit in Charlie’s direction.

  Exhausted, Charlie walked back from the station to her car just as dawn was breaking on the horizon. The Corolla was where she’d parked it, metal box tucked under the seat. She slid in and looked at her face in the mirror, studied the fresh red marks, which stung like hell.

  Abruptly, she tasted salt in the back of her mouth and her eyes stung. She blinked back tears.

  “Pull yourself together, Charlie Hall,” she told herself in the mirror.

  It was Thursday morning, which meant she had two more days before Salt’s event. Two more days to discover what Vince’s shadow wanted, where Vince was, and who was lying. Two more days to know what she was going to do with the book in the lockbox.

  But what she needed right then was sleep. She couldn’t go inside her house, since it was an active crime scene, cordoned off with tape. And she wasn’t sure she could bear going back to Mom’s place. The thought of sleeping on the air mattress while they moved around the room, of fending off questions, of telling more lies, made her feel claustrophobic and panicky.

  Not to mention the threat of a Blight out there, one looking for a book she might have in her possession. Maybe looking for her. So, she couldn’t go to Barb’s either. Not to any of her friends.

  You are the devil, corrupting everything you touch.

  The devil, like Suzie Lambton said. With the devil’s own luck.

  But maybe her luck was changing, because Charlie remembered something. Suzie Lambton had gone on a yoga retreat, leaving behind an empty condo for Charlie to break into.

  * * *

  Suzie’s place was within walking distance of the center of downtown Northampton. When Charlie pulled up, she realized right away that getting in was going to suck. The units were newly built, with large windows, and no trees or overgrown bushes to hide her from Suzie’s neighbors while jimmying the door. The last time she’d been there, she’d admired the place but hadn’t done nearly enough casing.

  Charlie parked three streets over, tucked the lockbox into her bag, got supplies from the trunk, and walked. It was just after six in the morning and she was sure people inside the units were just getting up, getting ready to send their kids to school and take themselves to work.

  Cutting behind the units, Charlie noted they had patios in the back. That was promising. People were more likely to give someone hanging out in a backyard the benefit of the doubt, and sliding glass doors were incredibly easy to open.

  People put dead bolts on their front entrances, with keypads and steel doors, and then neglected the back. Charlie positioned a screwdriver under the bottom of the patio sliders, then pushed up hard at the same time she turned the handle. Ten seconds later, she was inside, and the doors, no worse for wear.

  As she walked through the modern white kitchen with thick marble counters and pristine subway tile, Charlie’s steps echoed. She had a moment of feeling entirely out of place, as though she wasn’t just an intruder, but a traveler from another world.

  She made herself climb the stairs. Suzie’s bedroom was wallpapered in a cheerful pattern of tropical leaves. The door to the walk-in closet was open, and clothes were scattered on the floor, as though Suzie had packed in a hurry.

  Charlie staggered to the bed. She fell asleep on top of the coverlet, with early-morning sunlight flooding in through the picture window, still in her clothes.

  She woke to the red and golds of sunset. Her head felt cottony and her mouth was dry. For a disoriented moment, she didn’t know where she was. Then everything came flooding back, and along with it, a stab of panic.

  This is a job, she told herself. A job, even though she wasn’t sure she had a client. When working, you couldn’t afford to let yourself get freaked out.

  Forcing herself up, she handled the practical things. She plugged her phone into her charger and sent her sister and mother a text, saying she was okay and giving them a brief outline of what happened to Adam. Then she got into the shower.

  One of the things Charlie had always loved about breaking into houses was the pretending part. Here she was, trying on Suzie’s life, like the fresh tee and hoodie Charlie found in the closet. Suzie had body wash that smelled like vetiver and shampoo that smelled like hemp. In the medicine cabinet, an assortment of half-used bottles of painkillers greeted her. A book on her bedside table promised the eight secrets of being an effective communicator.

  All the lights were so bright that there were barely any shadows.

  As her jeans went around and around in the washer, Charlie made a pot of coffee. In Suzie’s fridge, she found a can of Diet Coke and a jar of peanut butter. Charlie stuck a spoon into the peanut butter and took a bite of it while she poured the contents of the soda can down the sink. Then she picked up some kitchen shears, took out Vince’s metal box, and got to work on the padlock.

  First, she had to cut the can so that it became a large rectangle of aluminum. Then she cut out two shims, each with a long wedge. Since he’d used a spring-loaded double-lock padlock, she knew she was going to need to hit the two tabs on the inside to wedge them open.

  Carefully, she pressed the first of the metal shims around the shackles, adjusted it a little with her fingers, and took it out again. Then, positioning the long wedge on the outside, she pushed it down into the gap between the shackle and the body of the lock. With enough slight back-and-forth twisting, she got it to slide in deeply enough that she was ready to rotate it. No audible noise came from it, but there was a feeling of resistance. When she couldn’t turn it any farther, she found pliers under the sink and used those to get it the rest of the way. Then she worked the other side. When both were done, and the shims turned, she gave a firm pull.

  The lock opened.

  She sucked in her breath and opened the box.

  No Liber Noctem rested there. Only a slim piece of paper, the edge tattered from being ripped out of a notebook.

  Charlie slammed her open palm against the marble counter. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

  What was she going to do now?

  She supposed the box was a decoy. A piece of misdirection. Vince had left it to slow down anyone looking for The Book of Blights. Which meant that wherever he was, the book was with him.

  Unfolding the paper, she was surprised to find it addressed to her.

  To the Charlatan,

  If you found this, things have gone all the way wrong.

  The key is abandon all hope.

  V

  Charlie poured coffee into a mug and took the letter over to the couch. Her heart was speeding. The sight of Vince’s handwriting, blocky letters written in a rush, brought back an intense longing to speak with him. To yell at him. To make him believe that so long as he wanted to be known, she wanted to know him.

  The key is abandon all hope. Maybe she should. Maybe she was being a fool.

  But her gaze strayed back to the words.

  The key is abandon all hope. Not to abandon all hope, the way you’d write it if you were suggesting it literally. The words had the feel of a riddle, but she didn’t understand it.