It was a beautiful day. The early morning rain had made the scent of the grass and the dead leaves all the more powerful. I shoved my hands in my tiny pockets and inhaled the cool air as we walked. It felt good to be alive.

Or, at least, not dead.

We walked along in silence. I didn’t mind, but I wondered if it was bothering Miranda. Her body was so tight that her shoulders curled up toward her ears.

It wasn’t until we reached the crosswalk between the edge of the campus and Wayde’s neighborhood that Darius decided to say something.

“Were you close to your uncle?”

Now, mind you, this was the nice Darius speaking; his voice had been nothing but curious and kind. Miranda still jumped.

She gripped the strap of her bag and said, “Yes. I mean…no. Yes and no.” She forced a laugh. “I’m not being very clear, am I?”

“I understand,” Darius said. “Answers aren’t always easy.”

The light changed, and we started across the street.

Miranda explained, “I met him once or twice when I was a child, but I only really got to know him recently.”

“How recently?”

“A little over two years ago.”

“Would that be about the time you started college?”

She nodded. That seemed to be all she had to say on the matter.

We walked along for a few feet, then Darius looked up at the gray sky and said, as if to himself, “And your uncle was a professor.” He looked back at her. “Is he the reason you applied here?”

“Mostly. I knew I wanted to go away for college, but I wasn’t sure where I should go. I got a letter from Uncle Trevon about a month before my graduation, congratulating me and asking if I’d ever considered going to his college.”

“Were you excited to apply?”

“It’s a really good school. I wasn’t sure I could get in, but Uncle Trev said he’d help.”

“That was kind of him.”

“It was,” she whispered.

After a few steps, she glanced at Darius and realized he was still watching her.

Her eyes fixed forward and she went on, “He sent me all the paperwork and coached me through the application process. He was really happy when I got in. I think he felt invested. When I got here, he wanted to spend some time with me, so we had dinner together every once in a while. That’s how I got to know him.”

“How often did you eat together?”

“Once every other week or so. He liked to cook.”

“Not a bad way to save some money as a student,” I noted.

A flicker of a smile crossed her face. “Yeah. There was that.”

Darius said, “Did you enjoy your dinners with him?”

Three steps later, she finally answered. “I did. Sometimes we’d sit around after dinner, talking. He knew the craziest things. Or he’d ask me how my classes were going, and we’d gossip about my professors.”

“That sounds fun. His specialty was religious anthropology, right?” Darius asked.

“Technically, he’d say he was”—a pompous note snuck into her voice—“a cultural anthropologist, specializing in ancient religions and rituals.”

Vasil nodded. “Very nice. Did he make you memorize that?”

Miranda smiled for real this time, and that smile transformed her face. She went from being pretty to being absolutely beautiful. “He held my ice-cream hostage until I could repeat it.”

Darius smiled back.

Then, as suddenly as Miranda’s good mood had appeared, it vanished. She lowered her head, and we trudged along.

Poor Darius. I could tell he was doing everything he could to get her to open up. It was like watching Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill, only to have it tumble all the way back down when he was nearly at the top.

And the only reason I remembered the story of Sisyphus was because, in high school, I had once made the mistake of calling him Syphilis. Yeah. You don’t make that mistake twice.

I was still pondering life’s various teaching methods when the count decided to try again.

“What about you? Do you share his love of anthropology?”

Maybe my funky black eyes were playing tricks on me, but I thought I saw Miranda lurch. If it was real, it wasn’t enough to trip her up.

“No,” she said. “I thought it was interesting, but I wanted to study something else.”

“May I ask what?”

“Psychology.”

“Aha!” I cried. “It’s the rinky-dink-shrinky shrink!”

Miranda St. John stopped and turned to me, laughing. “What?”

Go on, blush harder, you idiot. Maybe she’ll catch on to the fact you don’t think before you speak.

Out loud, I said, “Sorry. I’ve met one or two psychologists.”

“Rinky-dink-shrinky shrink?”

I purposefully kept my eyes away from Darius. I didn’t want to know what he thought of my professionalism.

“You know,” I said, “people call psychologists ‘shrinks,’ right?”

“Okay. And?”

“And one of them was really short and had a great sense of humor, so he didn’t mind that I called him—”

“A rinky-dink-shrinky shrink?” She laughed again.

I shrugged.

The count said, “Please forgive my associate—”

“For what?” Miranda asked. “That’s hilarious.” She said to me, “Thank you…Miss Cole, was it?”

“Call me Emerra,” I said.

“Thank you, Emerra. I needed that.”

“No worries,” I assured her. “My capacity to say dumb things knows no bounds.”

She turned and kept walking.

I still wasn’t looking at Darius, so I can’t tell you what his expression was, but his voice was devoid of intonation as he recited, word by word, “Rinky, dink, shrinky, shrink?”

I pointed down the block. “Oh, look! The house.”

The stone walkway that led up to Wayde's house started with a set of flat-rock stairs that moved up the steep incline of his yard until it flattened out. The two flower gardens on either side of the porch stairs were bare, but the grass sparkled with flecks of rainwater.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

As we were going up the front walk, my foot skidded on one of the stone steps.

“Careful!” Miranda called.

She reached out to catch me, but Darius moved faster than she did. I didn’t even see the blur. One of his hands was on my shoulder, the other was on my arm—I had no idea how they got there.

We all relaxed.

“Sorry,” St. John said. “I should have warned you. It gets slick when it’s wet.”

I assured her I was fine while internally marveling that Olivia would prefer high heel boots when sneakers had been invented.

We walked on (a little more carefully this time) up the stairs and across the grassy lawn.

Joel Aubert was waiting for us on the porch. As we got closer, he hailed us.

Darius returned his greeting. We climbed up the porch stairs.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Aubert,” Vasil said. “Thank you for coming to help.”

“Of course.” Joel turned. “Miranda, it’s good to see you again.”

Her cheeks turned slightly pink under her freckles, and she nodded.

“You’ve met each other?” Darius asked.

“Two or three times,” Aubert said.

While they talked, Miranda searched through her bag for the key to the house. I noticed that the police tape was gone from the door. Miranda found the key, unlocked the door, and we all went inside.

“You said you wanted to see the study?” Miranda asked.

“Please,” Darius said.

Miranda left her backpack by the door, and I put my empty thermos down beside it. Miranda crossed the living room toward the study and stood by the open door.

“In here,” she said.

The doorway rose over me as I drew closer. I hesitated on the threshold, but the count was behind me. He put a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me through. Aubert followed him.

The bloodstained armchair was gone. I walked over to the empty spot next to the small table and stood there, feeling awkward and somehow brave.

That’s right. What’s not here can’t scare me.

Miranda still hadn’t come in the room. Darius and Aubert were both watching her hover outside the door. It looked like she was waiting for permission to come in.

Darius said in his most gentle voice, “I understand you were the one who found the body.”

She nodded.

Geez. No wonder she’d stopped. The memory of the bloodstains had been enough to make me hesitate. How much worse must it have been to come in and see the blood-soaked body, sitting in the ruined chair—

I shook my head to clear the image that had dug its roots into my mem—my imagination.

You can’t remember things you didn’t see, Emerra.

I walked over to the remaining armchair. It was still turned from when Jacky and I had been there. I turned it back.

“I think the cleaners have been here,” I said. “This place looks really good.”

“They have been,” Miranda said. “I hired them.” She stepped into the room, but she kept her eyes away from where the other chair used to be.

As Darius walked over to the wall of bookshelves, he said, “You hired the cleaners?”

“I had to do everything. I had to take care of Uncle Trev’s body too. He didn’t leave any instructions—just that I was in charge.”

“Huh.”

Never had such an innocuous “huh” caused such reaction. I could see the color drain from Miranda’s face from across the room.

“I didn’t ask to be his heir.”

“It’s all right, Miss St. John,” Darius said. “I was only surprised. The type of people who create a will often leave instructions for their body."

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Do you mind if we start searching?”

Miranda motioned to the shelves.

“Mr. Aubert?” the count said.

Joel stepped forward. “He moved things around a lot, so I’m not sure where it is now, but the last time I saw it, it was on this shelf.”

Since we were looking for a scroll, we focused our attention on the clutter taking up the empty space around the books. You’d think that might make the job easier, but Professor Wayde had stuffed so many things on his shelves, we had to move most of it around to make sure we weren’t missing something. Darius took care to move things without disarranging them. My approach was more like grab, glance, drop it somewhere, and hope it wasn’t organized.

About five minutes into our search, Miranda let out a quiet noise. It wasn’t a sob or a sigh, but it was something like both. The rest of us looked up from what we were doing.

Aubert said, “Miranda?”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Darius pushed aside the papers he’d been looking at. “If you don’t mind me saying, Miss St. John, you look exhausted.”

“It’s been a rough few days.”

“Have you asked to take a leave of grief?”

Miranda shook her head. “I can manage. Thank you.”

“Could you use some coffee or tea? The three of us can do this by ourselves. We won’t take anything unless you know about it.”

Miranda stood up from where she’d been kneeling on the floor. “You know, coffee sounds really good. Would any of you like some?”

“Please.”

St. John left. I waited until I couldn’t hear her footsteps, then I walked over to Darius and whispered, “Why did you want to get rid of her?”

Darius returned to his search. “I didn’t.”

“Then why did you suggest coffee?”

“Because it looked like she needed some.”

I went back to the shelves.

As I was pulling out yet another stack of stuff, I grabbed a roll of what I thought was paper. It felt cold in my hand, and the material had a strange texture.

“Darius.”

The count left Wayde’s desk and came over to me. Aubert joined us.

I unrolled part of the scroll. It was covered in dark marks that, rather obviously, I couldn’t read. “Is this it?”

There was a long, silent second, then Darius said, “Mr. Aubert?”

“That’s it.”

“You’re certain? Wayde didn’t have any other Egyptian scrolls?”

The sorcerer shrugged. “I only saw it twice, but I’m pretty sure that’s it. He never mentioned another scroll.”

Darius said to me, “Bring it over here.”

We walked over to the desk. The count moved aside the things he’d been going through. I put the scroll down. He carefully unrolled the first part and laid out a few small items to keep it flat.

“Is that it?” I repeated.

Vasil pulled out his phone. “I don’t read Egyptian any better than you do, Emerra.”

He took a photo, tapped his phone a few times, put it back in his pocket, and bent over the desk.

“Do you know anything about papyrus?” Joel asked.

“Mr. Aubert,” Darius said, “would you please go tell Miss St. John that we’ve found the scroll. She doesn’t need to stop what she’s doing, but she should be informed.”

The sorcerer nodded and left.

When he was gone, Vasil lowered his face until it was only an inch away from the scroll. “I wish Conrad was here.”

“The wolfman?” I said. “Why?”

“Because his nose is even better than mine. I can smell people on it, but I can’t tell them apart, and I can’t smell the time.”

“He can smell time?” I said.

“Who touched it last, how long they held it for—that kind of thing.”

“So, it is the scroll.” I don’t know why that question was bothering me so much.

Darius put his hands on the desk and pushed up until he was leaning on them. “It shouldn’t be.”

“But…why—why not?”

“Because the scroll shouldn’t be here.”

“What?”

“We came here to make sure the scroll was gone. I never thought we would actually find it.”

“You had us searching through everything!”

“It’s important to be thorough. If I’m going to tell Jacky the scroll wasn’t in the shelves, you had better believe I’m going to make damn sure it isn’t in the shelves. But I had assumed that if the scroll had anything to do with the missing soul, the person who killed him would have taken it with them.” He straightened up and folded his arms. “What do you think, Emerra?”

My body jerked. “Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I’m not an expert or anything. Why would you care what I think?”

A wry smile pulled at his cheek. “I’ve told several people otherwise. If we’re going to say I’m consulting you, you’ll have to learn to sound like an expert.”

Sure. Pretend I’m an expert. I could do that. Everyone else did.

I chewed on my lip as I gazed at the scroll. “Well, it looks fake.”

“Yes. We knew that.”

“No, I mean it looks really fake. Like, it’s not a movie, but a bad movie.”

“This is what you think an expert sounds like?”

“Darius, you know how movies are all pretend, and we know it’s pretend, but we play along, and sometimes, in the middle of good movies, we forget?”

“Yes.”

I put my finger down on the papyrus. “This is a bad movie. It’s so bad we can’t forget it’s pretend, and we don’t want to pretend anyway.”

“Fine. I’ll grant you your metaphor, but Both said it was a fake. We were expecting that. What matters is if it was copied from a real scroll.”

“Yeah. But the way she talked about it, I thought it would look more real.”

From Darius’s pocket, there came a quiet ding.

He pulled out his phone and looked at it. “Well, Both says it’s the real fake that we’re looking for.”

He held his phone out so I could see the notification. Below Both’s name were the words “that’s the one.”

He put the phone back in his pocket. “We have to take possession of this scroll.”

“You mean steal it?”

He rolled it up. “That was not something you should say if you want a real badge, Emerra.”

Oops.

“I’ll have to make a few phone calls. Removing something like this from a crime scene is going to involve jumping through some hoops. I’m going outside to get some privacy. It may take me a while. Don’t wander off, and if you get a chance to talk to St. John, do it.”

“What? You mean, like, ask her if we can take it?”

“No! No, don’t do that. That’s my job. Ask her about her life and her uncle. Talk to her like a friend. We need more information about who might have wanted Wayde dead, but she won’t open up to me.”

“You noticed that too?”

“You, on the other hand—you and your rinky-dink-shrinky shrink—are much more approachable.”

“Got it.” I gave him an exaggerated thumbs-up.

The scroll stayed on the desk when he left.

I tried to put the bookshelf back together by shoving everything where it looked like it might fit. It was something to do, and it kept my mind off how skittish I felt being in the room alone.

Aubert came back as I was finishing.

“Where’s Agent Vasil?” he asked.

“He went to make a few phone calls,” I said.

“Was that the front door I heard?”

“Yeah. Miranda probably doesn’t know about…stuff.” I thought that was enigmatic enough to get my point across.

Aubert dropped his head in a quick nod. “He’s right,” he muttered. “She doesn’t.”

Miranda appeared in the doorway. “The coffee’s ready.”

We both turned. She was peering around the room.

“Where’s Agent Vasil?” she asked.

“He went outside to make a few calls,” Aubert explained.

When I saw Miranda’s face go slack, I rushed to assure her: “Don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong. I think he’s hoping we can take the scroll with us, so he had to call in to figure out what happens next. ”

“Oh.” She relaxed. Slightly. “Would you two like some coffee then?”

She was offering me a chance to get out of this room and an excuse to chat?

“We would love some,” I said.

I took Aubert by the arm and dragged him toward the door with me.