“I was with Belladonna Drake,” Jack said immediately. “I waited for my mom to fall asleep, because she doesn’t like Belle very much. Then I snuck out of the house and rode my bike across town. Belle was expecting me, so she let me in through the back door and we spent the night together. So to speak.”

A snort from the man in the chair. He was sizing Jack up, taking in the ripped men’s Levi’s and faded band T-shirt. She was wearing an olive-green jacket that Raven had given her on her thirteenth birthday, a faux-suede number with equally fake fur cuffs. Back then the floor-length jacket had been two sizes too big, but now it fit perfectly.

“So you and Miss Drake are… what? Friends? Girlfriends?” the detective asked, and Jack looked down. She was pretty good at blushing on command, if she thought of a certain person in a certain way.

“Let’s just say my mother doesn’t like us hanging out together. And if Edwin thought someone was visiting Belle in the middle of the night, he’d probably padlock her bedroom door.” On top of everything else, Jack thought, but she kept that detail to herself.

“Edwin? Belladonna’s father?”

“Adoptive father, yeah. He’s really overprotective, which is why I snuck into the house after he fell asleep.”

Detective Medina sighed. “So no one saw you entering the Drake residence? No one can corroborate your story?”

“The neighbors might’ve noticed me sneaking out around two thirty.” She flashed a taunting smile. “If you’re good at what you do, I’m sure you can drum up some evidence.”

“I have plenty of evidence.”

“What? Some belladonna in Evelyn’s system? That’s circumstantial. You can’t prosecute—” Jack broke off as the detective opened a file on the table. She assumed it was her file. She’d been to this station before. But when he pushed the clear plastic baggie toward her, containing a familiar scrap of paper, that surety slipped away. Everything slipped away as Jack read the words scribbled in bleeding, faded ink:

Recipe for the Perfect Murder

One petal of belladonna

One petal of poppy

Drop into a teacup and stir three times.

“This was lying on the table in Evelyn’s kitchen,” the detective said, his voice quiet now. Tentative. He was trying to coax a confession out of her, but the confession wasn’t about her. “There are two names on it: Poppy and Belladonna. But I don’t think you’re responsi—”

“Someone’s setting Belle up,” Jack interrupted. She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths. “Look at the handwriting! It looks like it was written by a fourteen-year-old.”