“Good afternoon, Rachel,” he called, his sharp gaze coming back from the roofline and Jenks’s disappearing trail of pixy dust. “You look like a piece of autumn in that sweater.”

I glanced down at the black-and-red pattern, never having thought about it before. “Thanks. You look good out here raking. Your knees doing okay?”

The old man patted the worn spots, squinting in the sun. “They’ve been better, but they’ve been a lot worse, too. Ceri’s been in the kitchen a lot lately, trying things out.”

I slowed, my feet still on the cracked walk to the front porch. Grass had encroached upon it until it was only eight inches wide. “I suppose,” I said softly, “chasing bad guys all your life can really damage a person. If they aren’t careful.”

He didn’t move, going still as he stared at me.

“I, uh, talked to someone today,” I said, wanting to hear it from him. “He said—”

“Who?” he rasped, and my face lost its expression. He was frightened. Terrified, almost.

“Trent,” I said, pulse quickening as I came forward. “Trent Kalamack. He acted like he’s known for a long time.” My shoulders tensed, and the dog barking nearby made me nervous.

Exhaling long and slow, Keasley replaced his fear with a relief so deep I could just about feel it. “He has,” he said, a shaky hand going over his tight, graying curls. “I have to sit down.” He turned to his house. It needed new shingles and paint in the worst way. “Do you want to sit for a moment?”

I thought about Ceri, then Marshal. Then there was the gargoyle Jenks was going on about, too. “Sure.”

Keasley made his slow way to the sagging porch steps, propping the rake against the rail before easing himself down in stages with a heavy sigh. A basket of cherry tomatoes decorated the railing to be given out for trick-or-treat, and two pumpkins waited to be carved. I gingerly sat beside him, my knees even with my chest. “Are you okay?” I asked hesitantly when he didn’t say anything.

He looked at me askance. “You know how to get an old man’s heart going, Rachel. Do Ivy and Jenks know?”

“Jenks,” I said, guilt pinching my brow, and he raised a hand to tell me it was all right.

“I trust he will keep his mouth shut,” he said. “Trent gave me the means to stage my death. Actually, all he gave me was the DNA-doctored tissue to smear over my front porch, but he knew.”

Gave him tissue? There’s a nice thought. “Then you really are—” My words cut off when his twisted hand landed warningly on my knee. In the street, five sparrows fought over a moth they had found, and I listened to them squabble, hearing in his silence his request that I not even say it. “It’s been over a decade,” I finally protested.