In Plain Sight

“What are they? Are they valuable? Is that why someone wants them? Is that why Thomas…” Her voice trailed off and she suppressed a sob.

“They might be extremely valuable to the right person,” he said, and shrugged. “We runewrights usually keep our constructs secret, but Thomas may have discovered something that would be more valuable if he sold it.” He paged to the finding rune. “This is the one he spent the most time working on. It’s a finding rune. I have one that looks very similar, but I’ve never seen one laid out this way.”

“What was Thomas looking for?”

“I don’t know.” Alex shook his head.

“What about these others?” she said, flipping the pages. “What are they for? Is it possible they go together?”

Alex furrowed his brow. He hadn’t thought of that. He wondered why Evelyn had.

“I just want to know what happened to my brother,” she said in response to his questioning look.

Alex pointed to the page where she had turned. “This is some variant of a life rune,” he said. “Runewrights power our constructs when we write them. The longer we spend making the rune, the more power it has. With this,” he indicated the rune, “we can power our constructs instantly with our own life energy. It can make even a simple rune incredibly powerful. It can also shave years off your life in a matter of seconds.”

“Do you do that?” she asked, her eyes full of concern.

“No,” he said. “It’s extremely dangerous.”

“What about this one?” Evelyn said, turning another page.

“I don’t know,” Alex said, flipping through them. “I’ve never see that one, or this, or this.” He turned to a construct that looked like a roadmap of some crooked European city. “I think this one is a protection rune, but I have no idea what it protects from.”

Evelyn stared at the book, turning the pages back and forth until she lowered her head and pushed the cover closed.

“I don’t know what any of this means, Alex,” she said. “All I know is that my brother is gone, most likely dead.”

“I am sorry,” Alex said. “If you come with me to my office, I’ll refund the rest of your money since I only needed the one day and the finding rune.”

“No.” She looked up with intensity in her eyes. “I want to know what happened to my brother. I want you to find the person who killed him. If they killed him for these drawings, you need to figure them out, Alex.” She shoved the book back into his hands. “You need to find whoever did this and give my brother and me some peace.”

Tears were streaming down her face now, ruining her makeup. Alex had an overwhelming urge to put his arm around her and hold her close, to tell her it would be okay.

“You sure you want that?” he said instead. “I might spend a lot of time spinning my wheels and not find anything.”

“I’ve got some money my parents left me,” she said. “This is what I want.”

Alex couldn’t really blame her. Her brother was all the family she had, and someone had taken him away. Just like Father Harry.

“All right,” Alex said, looking her square in the eyes. “I’ll find out what I can, but no promises.”

“That’s good enough,” Evelyn said.

He waited while she fixed her makeup with the aid of a tiny mirror from her purse, then walked her out of the park to get a cab. He pulled the blue book out of his pocket as she rode away, wondering how he would find out who killed Thomas. Runewrights were secretive about their runes, especially new ones. It was unlikely that Thomas mentioned it casually to a friend.

Maybe he had a partner, someone who worked on developing these constructs with him? But a partner would already know the runes, he wouldn’t have to search for them in Thomas’ apartment.

Alex shook his head and put the book back in his pocket. He’d have to spend some time studying it later. Right now he had other things to worry about. As soon as Danny got him the warehouse manifest, he’d be traipsing all over town looking for Pemberton’s murderer. Until then, however, he had time to call in a few favors and hopefully find out something about the elusive Charles Beaumont.

He thought about that on the crawler ride to his office. If Sister Gwen had been right that Beaumont was a thief, he couldn’t be the kind of penny-ante thief that would sell pocket watches to a hock-shop. His clothes were too good for that. Beaumont was a man of means. Not rich, or maybe rich and frugal, but either way it made him an entirely different class of thief than some pickpocket or street thug. Alex was looking for a man who stole from rich people and that made him either a stockbroker or a cat burglar.

If he actually is a thief.

Alex pushed that thought aside. If Beaumont was a cat burglar, that made him one of the rarest types of thieves. Few people plied that trade — the stakes were too high. Rich people had safes and guard dogs and, on occasion, armed security. Beaumont’s thefts might be easy to find, but anything about him personally would be rare as hen’s teeth.