“Let’s check the dresser and bedside drawers and see if she kept any papers here in her room,” Mac said. He handed me a pair of plastic gloves and donned a pair of his own.

Mac headed to the bedside table that had two shallow drawers.

I took the dresser and started at the top. I swept my hand toward the back of her underwear drawer, feeling for anything that wasn’t silky. It was all just as it should be—clothing, scarves, and sweaters. I didn’t have that feeling that tells me to keep looking in a particular place. Sometimes it feels like an actual pull toward a certain location, other times I get flashes of an area—often even after I’ve looked in that spot. It reminds me of a camera flash in the dark and it means I’ve missed something. It wasn’t until I had checked the whole dresser that I decided to pull the drawers out of the dresser and check the backs.

Still nothing. And Mac appeared to have come up empty as well.

“If she hid anything up here, it wasn’t anywhere obvious,” I said.

If she was a seasoned blackmailer, she probably knew better than to put evidence in a drawer where anyone could find it.

A secret staircase seemed like a good place to stash something unless the people you were blackmailing used that staircase to deliver their payoffs. I reflected that I had been spending too much time with Vi—my own imagination was starting to sound like her. Blackmail, payoffs, and nefarious schemes were more Vi’s area than mine.

I wandered to the window and looked out at the snowy view. From this vantage point, the woods were quite beautiful with each branch outlined in white. I sat in the chair by the window and tried to think of any other place she might have hidden her blackmail evidence.

I closed my eyes, and breathed deeply. I tried to relax and clear my mind as Neila had taught me to do. After a few moments I felt a tug. That’s the only way to describe it—a gentle pull toward the wardrobe. I opened my eyes and looked across the room.

Mac rummaged in the wardrobe, which seemed to contain a lot of dresses and shoes. The shoes spilled out of it and I began to realize why they always littered her floor—the woman had a serious problem. She even had shoeboxes stacked on top of the wardrobe.

I got up to help Mac sort the shoes out and counted fifteen pairs that had been tossed into the bottom of the freestanding closet under the dresses. She had tossed high-end couture in with drugstore flip-flops.

The tug was stronger here, but didn’t seem connected to her shoes. Then I looked up again at the shoeboxes.

“Mac, can you reach those shoeboxes up there?” I pointed.

He caught my eye and grinned. “Good idea—she didn’t seem to care about organizing her shoes.”

He brought down the three boxes, which didn’t rattle like shoes and were heavier than I would expect.

The first two contained journals dating from fifteen years previously going up to about two years ago. The third contained a locked metal box. It was one of those heavy fireproof things that are nearly impossible to break into. And underneath, a worn leather notebook.

Mac picked up the notebook with his gloved hand and flipped to the back. The pages were filled with letters and numbers in what looked like a code. He snapped it shut and slipped it into a large baggie. I examined the metal box.

“Did she have a key on her when she died?” I asked, hoping we wouldn’t have to go to the shed and search her body.

“I don’t think so. She wasn’t wearing a necklace and I did check her pockets.”

“Now we’re looking for a key,” I said. “That’s even harder to find.”

“Let’s check the bathroom.”

We took everything out of the medicine cabinet and lined it up on the counter. No key was attached to the shelves or taped to the bottom of her face lotion. I felt another nudge. Something was wrong here, but I couldn’t place it. Now that we had taken everything off the shelves, it looked different to me. We put the pain reliever, birth control, bandages, and toothpaste back on the shelf. I still couldn’t place it. Mac took the lid off the toilet and checked inside. He ran his hand along the back. He stood and shook his head.

We went back out to the bedroom and I ran my hands along the hems of all her dresses and skirts. Mac checked the pockets of all her jackets. Still nothing.

I was systematically going through each piece of clothing in each drawer when the door to the bedroom slowly eased open.

35

“Oh, it’s you guys again,” Vi said from the doorway.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

She pulled her hand behind her back and said, “Nothing. Just thought I’d look around while your mother does her card readings.”

She’d been quick, but I had spotted the deep purple drawstring bag in her hand.

“What are you going to do with the pendulum?”

“Pendulum?” Mac said.

Vi brought her hand out from behind her back and sighed. “I wanted to see if it would tell me who else had been up here that night.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Mac said.

Vi drew herself up to her full five feet, two inches. “Detective McKenzie, just because you don’t understand it, doesn’t mean it won’t work.”

“You’re trying to solve this case using a piece of glass on a string?”

“What are you using? Intuition and gut feelings?”

“No, I’m using my experience in solving murder cases,” Mac said.

“Well, I’m using my experience in answering questions with a pendulum.”

“We’re pretty much done here, Mac,” I said. “We might as well let Vi swing her crystal around.”

Vi pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at me. We all stood staring at one another.

“Well, are you going to ask some questions or not?” Mac asked.

“I’d prefer to be alone,” Vi sniffed. “The pendulum doesn’t respond well when there is negative energy in the room.”

I figured she also thought we’d steal her top-secret pendulum information if we hung around.

“Ms. Greer, you have to promise not to move anything or touch anything,” Mac said.

“Don’t you think the crime scene has been fully contaminated by now, what with cats and ghosts and who knows who else wandering through here—plus what do you think Clyde is doing?” She pointed at the clothing piled on the floor. “I know Clarissa left her shoes everywhere, but I don’t remember her storing her clothing on the floor.”

Mac rubbed his forehead. He glanced at me for guidance.

“I’ll put it all back and then you can ask your questions,” I said to Vi. “Just try not to disturb anything.”

Vi humphed. “Don’t tell me not to disturb anything. I know how to act at a crime scene—I’ve been Googling police procedure for months.”

I tidied up Clarissa’s clothing without finding a key, and Mac and I went back downstairs, leaving Vi and her pendulum alone in Clarissa’s room.

As soon as we exited the stairwell, Mac grabbed my arm and propelled me toward my room.

“We need to talk,” he said, “privately.”

I pulled out my key and unlocked the door.

Mac ushered me inside, locked the door, and put the chain into the metal slider.

“I need to tell you something that you absolutely cannot share with anyone,” he said. He held my gaze and all I saw were his cop eyes.

I nodded. “Of course.”

“Not Vi, or your mother, or even Seth. Don’t even think about it around that kid—sometimes I think he can read minds.” Mac held Clarissa’s notebook out and flipped it open.

I stepped toward him to get a better look.

He pointed to the column of numbers and letters.

“I think this is a list of cell phone types and numbers of units.” He ran his finger down the column.