In Plain Sight

Alex felt like a heel. When he didn’t speak, Evelyn grinned sadly.

“It’s okay,” she said. “What are you doing here? Did you find something?”

“I did.” Alex turned and pointed to the five-and-dime. “Your brother had his rune workshop in the building next to that store. I’m on my way to see what’s there. Maybe I can find out something about his mysterious girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” Evelyn said, a look of interest crossing her face. “Thomas never said he had a girlfriend.”

“Her name’s Becky,” Alex said. “That’s all I know.”

“Could she be the reason he’s dead?” Evelyn’s voice trembled, and Alex put his hand on her shoulder.

“Right now I don’t even know her last name,” he said. “Let me look around Thomas’ workshop and I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“No,” she said, and shook her head. “I’m coming with you.”

Alex thought about what his ghostlight might reveal — Thomas’ shadow on the wall. He didn’t want to hurt Evelyn any more that she had been. On the other hand, she deserved truth.

“All right,” he said. “But I go in first and you don’t follow until I call for you.”

She folded her arms across her chest and fixed him with a hard stare. When he didn’t relent, she said, “All right.”

The stairway next to the five-and-dime went up to a long, straight hallway on the second floor of a plain-looking building. Windows filled the left hand wall, showing a view of the five-and-dime’s roof and the street beyond. Doors were set along the opposite wall at regular intervals. Only one of them bore the triangle and eyeball symbol of a runewright, right above a sign that advertised office hours from seven to ten PM, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

“It’s locked,” Evelyn said, trying the door.

Alex had been expecting that, so he pulled his rune book from his jacket pocket and flipped to the back. That was where he kept the rarer, more expensive runes. When he got to a triangular one with what looked like a deformed duck inside, he stopped and tore it out.

“What’s that?” Evelyn asked.

“Something I’m not supposed to know,” Alex said, licking the paper and sticking it to the doorknob. Lighting a match from the book in his pocket, he touched it to the paper. The rune glowed bright orange as it disappeared in fire and the door lock opened with an audible clack.

“That’s amazing,” Evelyn said as Alex opened the door. “You must be able to get in anywhere you want.”

“Not really,” Alex said, tucking his rune book back in his pocket. “That rune costs ten bucks to make. Not to mention that what I just did is breaking and entering.”

“Not with me here,” Evelyn said. “I’m the owner’s sister, after all.” She reached over and flicked a switch on the wall, filling the room with light from the magelight crystals hanging on wires from the ceiling. “See,” she said. “I’m helping already.”

Thomas’ workshop was a complete contrast from his apartment; of course, his apartment had been ransacked. The workshop looked like an advertisement for runewright shops. Three workbenches stood in the center of the space; the one on the right had a blotter pad on it. A freestanding set of drawers occupied one side, where pencils and penknives would be kept, with a wire rack on the other, filled with pot after pot of ink. Along the back were two stacks of trays that held paper.

The workbench on the left had a gas canister below it with a long rubber tube that ran up through holes in the tabletop to burners. A maze of glass tubes, distillers, evaporators, and extractors were set up and ready to brew the special inks Thomas used in his work. None of the glass was dirty or smudged.

The middle workbench was completely empty, but based on the scorch marks and scoring on the top, Alex guessed it was where Thomas tested his runes and refined them.

Along the walls stood orderly shelves holding neatly stacked containers, cabinets full of materials, and cases full of books. An industrial sink stuck out from the wall in the back, next to a door that Alex assumed went to a bathroom. In the far corner there was a small workbench up against the wall with a hot plate and a coffee pot on it and a set of cupboards overhead. A comfortable-looking reading chair and lamp stood to one side, with a neatly made bed on the other. Apparently Thomas was prepared if he had to work late. No sense waking Mrs. Jefferson up by coming in after midnight.

Now this is the workshop of a bookkeeper.

“Well, this is it, I guess,” Evelyn said. “What are we looking for?”

“First, I need to find what your brother was working on,” Alex said, approaching the middle workbench. Set into the bench’s top were four brass triangles that pointed out, like the corners of a square. Thomas would slip the corners of his drawing paper under those to keep it in place when he wrote or activated his runes.