CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

As soon as Faith reached the top of the stairs, all sound seemed to fade. It was as though a felt blanket was draped over the floor. The downstairs had been clean, but here a layer of dust lay over everything, not so thick as to make it feel abandoned, just neglected. The air felt heavier, too, thick and musty. It seemed to Faith that she had entered the lair of some old shaman who had delved so far into his mysteries that he maintained only a tenuous connection to the mundane world.

Or she. Faith recalled the medical examiner's warning that their killer could be a she, and they shouldn't assume he was male just because serial killers usually were. Faith had assured him that they only used male pronouns for convenience, and she wouldn't let that assumption color her investigation, but that hadn't been entirely true. She had been looking for a man. Maybe that hadn't hindered her, really, but she now wondered if Nina were as innocent as she seemed.

As a matter of fact, she didn't seem all that innocent. She all but admitted that she believed in alchemy, and she expressed a great deal of admiration for the practice. Faith wondered if she admired the killer. Of course, she also wondered if Nina could be the killer herself. It didn't seem like such a stretch.

Turk trotted ahead of Faith, stopping every few seconds to sniff the air and the ground. That elusive smell that he was tracking was here, but still elusive, still faint. Or maybe, like Faith, it was a feeling Turk followed rather than a concrete sense.

He walked into a room. Faith followed and saw that it was a bedroom. The bed was made, and the furniture decorated in a similar manner to the first floor, but also covered in the thin layer of dust that covered everything here.

Maybe the first floor had looked the same until Michael called and asked to speak to her. Maybe Nina had polished up the ground floor to hide the fact that she cared little for the appearance of her house, that it had ceased to matter to her whether her home was presentable to strangers. None of this confirmed that Nina was anything other than eccentric, but eccentric people made eccentric killers, and Nina was obsessed with alchemy.

Turk stuck his nose under the bed but found nothing to hold his interest. He tried the closet and found nothing there either. He snorted irritably and stood still with his head cocked, concentrating.

"Take your time, boy," Faith encouraged. "Make sure you find whatever it is."

Turk gave her a slightly irritated look at the somewhat contradictory instructions. Faith decided to stay quiet and let him work.

He trotted from the room, and she followed. Rather than explore the other rooms on the second floor, he returned to the stairs. A second flight led to a hatch in the ceiling that presumably led to Nina Verbeck's attic.

Faith's heartbeat quickened when Turk climbed that flight of stairs and pressed his nose to the hatch. Faith reached instinctively for her gun, then drew her hand back. Then she drew the gun anyway. Maybe Nina wasn't the killer herself. Maybe she was harboring him.

Turk didn't seem that concerned, though, merely interested. He stood, tail wagging, and waited for Faith to push the hatch open.

He jumped through, and Faith followed. Here, finally, was a level of dust that indicated not even a cursory interest in cleanliness. There was no ambiguity at the cobwebs that dominated this room.

Faith was about to call Turk back downstairs when he barked and trotted to a large chest of drawers that sat on one wall. He stopped in front of the chest and barked again.

Faith holstered her weapon and walked to the chest. "You got something boy?"

Turk barked again and looked at her. Heart pounding, she pulled open the top drawer.

And everything fell into place. The drawer was filled with little glass vials. Each glass vial was filled with a different color of mica powder. Faith noticed that one vial was missing of black, one of white and one of yellow. With a chill, she saw that a red vial was absent as well.

Nina Verbeck was their killer. She had left Michael downstairs with their killer.

"Shit."

She slammed the drawer shut and drew her weapon. "Go to Michael, Turk. Now."

Turk shot off like a bullet, barking and flying down the stairs. Faith followed as quickly as she could. When she reached the second floor, she heard Nina scream. "Hey! What is this? What is he doing?"

Faith reached the first floor and rushed to the kitchen to see Turk standing protectively in front of Michael, snarling at Nina, who pressed against her wall, her face blanched in fear.

Michael looked questioningly at Faith. Without taking her eyes off of Nina, Faith said, "We found mica powder. A lot of it. Guess which colors were missing vials?"

Michael's eyes widened. He turned to Nina, who had grown almost translucent with fear.

"You want to talk to us, Nina?" Faith asked, her voice low and deadly. "Or should we take you somewhere and make you talk?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"Now see, that's a lie," Faith replied.

Now that she knew who Nina was, she wasn't afraid of her anymore. She might think herself a witch or a sorceress or a witch doctor, but all Faith saw was a murderer.

Nina's eyelid twitched. "The powder is for an artwork."

"That's a hell of a lot of powder."

"It's a large artwork. I'll show it to you. It's in my garage."

"And you just happened to need black, white, yellow and red?"

"Yes. It's an oil painting of the Magnum Opus, seven feet by six feet. Those are the primary colors of the Opus, so they must be well-represented."

"And the interest in alchemy? The belief that there are forces at work in the universe that science can't understand?"

Nina blinked. "That's not… I don't mean to say I believe that I can kill people and obtain eternal life. I thought I said that. I just mean that there might be benefits to understanding ancient philosophy."

"And you knew that the killer had completed nigredo, albedo and citrinitas ," Michael said. "I don't buy that you just guessed that based on the limited information the news released."

"Oh, for God's sake," Nina said brittlely. "If the news said that a man was found with a wooden bat and a small cork ball covered in white leather with red stitching, it wouldn't take much of a leap to assume that he was a baseball player."

"Baseball's a bit more common of an interest than alchemy," Michael pointed out.

"But I'm an expert in alchemy! Of course, I'm going to be better equipped to identify alchemical rituals than the average person!"

"Exactly," Faith said. "There's not a lot of you around. And you have the same powders used on our victims."

"Many people do! Mica powder is a base for pigments, dyes, even paints! Come! I'll show you what I've used mine for!"

"I'll accept that you've used some of your powder for art. But you used it for something else too, didn't you?"

"No! For God's… did you just come here to accuse me of murder?"

"We came here to understand our killer better," Faith replied. "I think now we do."

Nina began to tremble. "Listen," she said, struggling for calm. "You've made a mistake. I am using mica powder for my artwork. I am studying alchemy to write a book. I am certainly not murdering women as part of some absurd quest for eternal life."

"Why are you killing them?"

"I'm not killing them! You can't possibly believe that."

"I believe I found some pretty damned compelling evidence."

Nina's eyes narrowed. She looked shrewdly between the two of them. "Then why haven't you arrested me? If you're so certain, why are you still talking to me?"

"I'm giving you a chance to prove that I'm wrong," Faith said. "Tell me why I shouldn't suspect you?"

"Because your only piece of evidence is that I have mica powder in my attic!"

"And you have a fascination with alchemy and a deep understanding of the Magnum Opus," Faith added. "And you were very careful to point out that our killer was a she."

"Almost as if you were offended that we would have thought such a brilliant work was completed by a man," Matt added.

"That's preposterous! My feminism has nothing to do with this murder! The victims are women! If I hated men, I'd kill them, wouldn't I?"

Faith decided to drop the bomb. "My dog placed you at the scenes."

Nina flinched. "What? That's impossible." Her voice was barely a whisper.

"It's not only possible," Faith said, "it's certain. At all three scenes, he picked up a scent. He picked up that same scent in this house."

"The mica powder!" Nina said. "That's what he's smelling!"

"Not the mica powder. Your mica powder."

"That is not true," Nina insisted. "Please. You can't really believe this."

"Can you confirm your whereabouts for last night?"

Nina flinched again. Faith held her gaze until she swallowed and said hoarsely, "No."

Faith had heard enough. "Nina Verbeck, you're under arrest for the murders of Cassidy Holt, Samantha Reynard and Lorraine Hayes. If you come quietly, then we'll be gentle with you. If you don't, then I have a K9 unit that I am more than willing to use."

Nina shivered. "This is a mistake," she whispered.

"We'll talk about that," Faith said. "Please place your hands on top of your head."

Nina began to weep and complied with Faith's instructions. Michael stepped forward and cuffed her, giving Faith another questioning look. Are you sure?

Faith returned a look of her own. Sure enough.

She wasn't certain. Not after talking to Nina. She seemed frightened but not exactly guilty. That could just mean she was a sociopath afraid of justice or a terrified alchemist afraid of having her spell thwarted.

The missing red powder flashed in Faith's mind. She looked sternly at Nina and said, "Did you take a fourth victim? Where is that red powder."

To her surprise, Nina lifted her head and assumed a dignified expression. "I have never found even a first victim. I'm not sure why you've suddenly decided that I'm guilty, but I have nothing to say to you."

Faith stepped in front of her and met her eyes. "If we find a fourth body that you could have saved by being honest with us, I will make sure that the first seven hundred years of your everlasting life are spent staring at the sun through a pinhole."

Nina shivered but kept her cool. Mostly. "I have done nothing wrong. I am being maligned for no reason."

"Well, the jury will decide that," Faith replied. "Let's go, Michael."

The four of them headed toward the police cruiser. Faith felt odd, though. There was none of the usual triumph that came from catching a killer. Had she made a mistake after all?

Michael helped Nina into the cruiser and walked to the driver's seat. Faith tried to calm herself by reminding herself that she was taking Nina in for questioning right now. If the questioning revealed that she wasn't the killer, then she would just be another red herring.

But it would leave a victim still in danger. Faith felt a touch of guilt at the thought, but she hoped very much that Nina would turn out to be their killer.

Then she wouldn't have to wait to hear of another woman sacrificed to a fantasy.