Paige nodded. “That’s what I said. I thought maybe the fingerprint had misidentified him or that this wasn’t the man Hope knew as Guy.”

“It is,” I said. “But I saw him yesterday. Talked to him.”

The doctor flipped a page on her clipboard. “Then you must be mistaken.”

“She isn’t,” Karl said. “I saw him as well. I’m sure we can get security camera footage from the club to confirm it. He was there yesterday afternoon meeting with people who knew him and saw nothing amiss.”

“And as far as we can tell, he killed two people less than six hours ago,” Paige added.

“Could the time of death be wrong?” I asked. “I know that under some conditions, the initial estimate can be off.”

Dr. Aberquero sniffed. “CSI or Law and Order?”

“The State of New York v. Edwin Cole, 2005. Later evidence showed the victim’s body had somehow been in a chilled state. Because that wasn’t immediately detected, the time of death was wrong. As for the ‘unidentified chilling,’ it was postmortem freezing from a clever Gelo half-demon. I know this is the opposite problem, but in our world, changing body temperature isn’t impossible.”

“You’re right. But we look for that here and there’s every indication that this man has been dead at least twenty-four hours. I’d even say it’s closer to thirty-six.”

Paige thanked her. As we were about to leave, I saw Karl’s gaze drifting around the room. Searching for something? Whatever it was, he’d have a better chance of getting it without me around, so I left with Paige.

A few minutes later, Karl emerged, dark blue fabric balled in one fist.

“Guy’s shirt?” I said.

“Scent.”

He waved for us to follow the officer to the elevator.

On the way upstairs, Karl said only that he wanted to return to the warehouse, presuming, I suppose, that we’d know he wanted to search for Guy’s scent.

The officer took advantage of these last few minutes to tell Paige how happy he was that Lucas was investigating. How he’d heard such good things about his work. How he looked forward to working under him.

It could have been a show of support, but as Paige’s fingers clenched around her purse strap, I knew she thought otherwise. With two brothers gone and the third accused, that left one Cabal son to inherit it all, and this young man was brown-nosing as fast as he could.

On the elevator, I touched Karl’s elbow, hinting for him to work his magic, cut in and smoothly rescue Paige. I was surprised he hadn’t already. But Karl just patted my hand, his mind miles away.

AT THE WAREHOUSE, Karl set about searching for Guy’s scent. He found only old trails.