He nodded to the portly policeman on duty, who had abruptly tucked a slim dime novel into his top drawer and was now making a show of shuffling through important-looking paperwork. Charlie made his way directly toward the holding cells. His shoulders were damp from rainfall, and his eyes were even more tired than when last we’d seen him, red-rimmed and hung with heavy bags.

I glanced at Jackaby, who was following the young detective’s approach intently, as a cat on a windowsill might follow the movements of a stray dog below. Charlie? Could the sweet man whose intentions had felt so earnest really be the villain we were hunting? The villain hunting us? He had lied about the claw marks on the door, I remembered. Jackaby was right; the detective was keeping secrets. I fixed him with my steeliest gaze and waited for him to speak. Charlie did not seem to notice. He stopped near the bars of Jackaby’s cell, heavy shadows collecting beneath his brow, his head hung down. He breathed deeply for several seconds, and a few drops of rain plunged from his damp hair to spatter the pointed tips of his polished shoes.

“Well, Miss Rook, Mr. Jackaby,” he said at last, “this is it.” His voice was grave and ominous, a tone only amplified by the wailing winds and icy air, but it was not menacing. It echoed the weariness written across his face. With a heavy sigh, his head finally rose, and those bloodshot eyes looked into mine.

He read my expression silently for several seconds, and I read his. Confusion, at first, crept in, crinkling his eyebrows as he glanced between Jackaby and me. Then some dawning comprehension smoothed his brow.

“You can hear her, can’t you?” he asked.

“That’s right,” I answered, my trembling fear turning to indignation. “Just like Bragg. Just like Henderson. So we’re next, are we?”

Charlie nodded, still without the menacing countenance of a killer stalking his prey, but with a resigned and genuine sadness. “Yes, Miss Rook, it seems we are.”

It was not the taunt of a hunter, but rather the lament of prey. My suspicions wavered, and then fled like shadows from the light of dawn. “ ‘We’? You mean you can hear the cries as well?”

He nodded.

Of course. How selfish Jackaby and I had been to think we endangered only ourselves by sticking our noses into the case. If the killer was a cornered animal, lashing out as we attempted to close in on him with each new clue, then we had brought Charlie right with us into range of the beast. Publicly, he had been as much a part of the search as either of us.