I swallowed hard, debating whether or not to answer. But I knew I had to. I owed it to Mr. Ankil. “My mother.”
Selene and Eli both looked at me in surprise.
I began to fidget with my hair, twisting the red curls around my fingers. “It’s true. I ran into her in the bathroom.”
“What was she doing at the dance?” asked Selene as the chair gave a little buck beneath her. She grabbed the arms then kicked its wheels with the heel of her combat boot. “Stop that.” The chair squeaked indignantly, but stayed still.
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t say.”
“Hmmm,” said Eli, writing her name down.
His lack of response made me nervous.
“Who else?”
We ended up adding another half-dozen names, including Bronson Babbit, a junior werewolf, and Lance Rathbone. Once we had everybody we could think of listed, we went through and eliminated the most unlikely.
“I know it wasn’t Lance,” said Eli. “I was near him right before I followed you down into the tunnels, so there’s no way he could’ve gotten there before us. Besides, he wouldn’t do something like that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Selene darkly.
Eli scoffed. “Just because he can be a creep sometimes doesn’t mean he’s going around killing people.”
“You got the creep part right.” Her chair squeaked again, as if in agreement. She gave one of the arms a pat.
“Hey, focus here,” I said, and snapped my fingers in an attempt to head off an argument. “Doesn’t matter. Eli’s right. He couldn’t have gotten down there before us.”
Eli put a line through Lance’s name.
By the time we finished, only Coach Fritz, Culpepper, Frank Rizzo, and my mother were left.
“Okay,” Eli said. “Let’s talk motive. Why would any of these people want to break the Keeper spell?”
“Crazy, power-hungry psychos?” said Selene. “I mean, aside from Dusty’s mom.”
Eli shook his head. “Not solid enough.”
“Okay, try this,” I said. “Since Culpepper and Rizzo are both predatory demons, The Will affects them more. You could argue they’re more oppressed by its restrictions.”
“Better,” said Eli. He typed “DK” followed by a question mark in the Motive column.
“But what about Coach Fritz?” asked Selene, tilting her head. “He’s a fairy.”
“That one’s easy,” said Eli. “He hates humans.”
This wasn’t exactly news. Fritz was a fairy of the Werra tribe, a group of warrior fairies, definitely one of the most violent. And the coach didn’t exactly censor his feelings about ordinaries. On more than one occasion, I’d heard him complain about how magickind were required to blend in with those “useless ants” or “demon fodder.” If there were a magickind equivalent to the KKK, Fritz might well have been the Grand Dragon.
“What does hating humans have to do with The Will?” asked Selene.
“Well, he could use it to make them do things. Or punish them,” said Eli, striding back and forth in front of the blackboard. “I’m an ordinary, and it definitely works on me.”
I shivered at the idea of a weapon like that in the hands of a guy like Fritz. He wouldn’t have to build concentration camps to kill people, he could just order them to jump in a lake and drown themselves.
“Put him at the top of the list,” said Selene.
“Okay. But what about Ms. Everhart?” Eli glanced at me. “She doesn’t have any motive that you know of, does she?”
I shook my head. None that I knew of, other than her overall contempt for the government and rules in general. My mother, the anarchist.
“I don’t think she’s a good suspect,” said Selene. “Rosemary was seeing a guy so it couldn’t be her.”
“True,” said Eli, “but we can’t ignore the possibility there’s more than one person involved in these killings.”
A chill went through me at the idea. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me before. With something this big, there was bound to be more than one person involved.
“Maybe,” said Selene, pursing her lips.
Eli looked at me again, his expression apologetic. “And doesn’t she have a reputation for breaking the law? Lance told me she’s able to get around The Will whenever she wants.”
“Sooner or later you’re going to learn not to listen to Lance,” said Selene, huffing. “He’s a big fat liar. This is Dusty’s mother you’re talking about. She doesn’t break laws. She just bends them occasionally.”
“Oh, I understand all about bending rules, but we can’t just dismiss her out of hand.”
Selene scowled at him, her manner as tough as always, but I couldn’t help noticing the way she fidgeted whenever Eli turned that piercing gaze of his on her. At least I wasn’t the only person he could intimidate with just a look.
I knew I should say something, but I didn’t. My mother was a likely candidate for being involved simply based on what she was able to do, but I didn’t want to encourage Eli and Selene in the idea. If it came to investigating my mother for murder, I would do it alone.
“I think the others are our best bet,” Selene said. “They all have F in their names.”
“You’re right,” Eli conceded. “We’ll focus on them.” He examined the list for a couple of seconds. “This is a good start.”