“And,” Adam added, “if he needs a place like this, why kill a witch here and blow his cover? He killed the first two witches in their own”—he hesitated and winced, probably realizing he spoke of her sister—“environment. Sorry, Isabelle.”

“It’s okay.” Isabelle shrugged. “It was just a theory.”

“And not a bad one.”

“Well, at least we can rule out that he’s targeting young female witches now that he’s taken a man and an elderly lady,” Thomas put in.

“He’s selecting them on other criteria,” Theo jumped in, striding to the three of them. He wore rubber gloves over his broad hands. Isabelle didn’t want to think about why.

“Well, I’m leaving you three to hash that out,” Isabelle put in. “I need to search for water molecules.”

Isabelle left them talking and circled the sheets, examining the floors. Reaching out with her magick, she explored the area for any residual moisture that might have retained memories of the murder. She halted in the center of the warehouse and drew the water droplets to her, petting them and purring at them with her magick until they coalesced and began to give up their recollections of what had happened that night. Warm magick rippled from the center of her chest to complete the task.

“Come on. What secrets are you keeping?” she murmured.

Isabelle grimaced as the hazy, watered down images began to flicker through her mind’s eye. She put herself through this torture for one reason and one reason only—to discover something new and different, some puzzle piece that would fit to make the picture clearer.

Now that she had her magick on the moisture, she doubted the doors had been open during the killings. Sifting through, it was difficult to find much memory.

As she gathered more moisture from the air, she felt the strain on her body from the expenditure of her magick. At the same time, the images grew more frequent and came to her a little less hazy, although fragmented, like a horror movie being played, fast forwarded, and then played again.

And then it slammed into her in one short blast of hell.

She tasted the fear of the victims on the back of her tongue—sharp and metallic. She heard their screams echoing in the cavernous building…until they didn’t echo any longer.

Isabelle didn’t know how long Thomas had had his arms around her, or how long she’d been crouching on the floor of the warehouse, both hands flat on the gritty concrete floor. Her vision had gone black and she’d lost her hearing, though she hadn’t passed out. Her body shuddered as if she were outside naked in the middle of January.