My spirit slammed back into my body, and my eyes popped open to find Detective Atwood watching me intently with his hand on my forehead.
He jumped a little and pulled his hand back. “Are you all right? You weren’t responding.”
“Yes, well...” I rubbed my chest, where my heart still pounded from watching Arthur get killed. “That happens sometimes.” I stood and replaced the knob and other items on the shelf.
“Don’t be stubborn, Poppy. I think we should get you checked out,” Detective Atwood said. My reassurance hadn’t banished the furrow that had taken up residence between his eyes.
“I’m fine. Truly. That’s normal when I do this,” I said. “More importantly, I’ve figured a few things out.”
“Such as?” His eyes widened, but he still watched me carefully, as if he expected me to pass out at any moment.
“I know what the murderer looks like now, and I can tell you that you were right about them being connected. It was the same man as last time.”
Detective Atwood straightened like he’d touched pure aether with his bare hands. “How do you know?”
I gave him a look. “I told you. I see things.”
He clenched his jaw. I could tell him what I’d seen until I ran out of steam, but it was up to him to believe me or not.
“With my job, blind leaps of faith often get people in trouble,” he said. “I prefer to deal with cold, hard facts, as you guessed over lunch.”
“Here’s a fact for you: the information I got from my ‘friend,’ I actually got from seeing things, but I couldn’t tell you the truth then.”
His eyes lit with understanding—he’d always doubted my cover story—but it didn’t soften the sharp line of his jaw. He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled sharply. “So why did you decide to tell me the truth now?”
“Part of it was feeling like I didn’t have a choice. I think my family is tangled up in this somehow, and I can’t sit back and do nothing.” I pulled my glove back on, giving the action more attention than it necessitated. “And the other part is that I do trust you to do your best with your job, and for now, that has to be enough.”
We cleaned up the evidence and walked outside. The door’s soft click sounded like the end of our partnership before it even began. If only I had some way to corroborate my information.
Detective Atwood rubbed a hand over his face. “You don’t like to make this easy on me, do you, Poppy?” His determined gaze seared me, as if he was saying one thing but he meant something else, but then he sighed. “So what else did you learn?”
I hesitated a moment. He still didn’t believe me, but he was trying.
“I think our victim’s name is Arthur, and he’s a professor.”
Detective Atwood gave me another curious glance. “Why do you think that?”
“I heard it.”
He blew out a breath.
Since he was already annoyed, I might as well finish my list of information now, that way he’d know everything before asking me to leave if that’s what he decided. “The killer took Arthur’s briefcase when he killed him.”
“What briefcase? There wasn’t anything like that near the body.”
“Because it was taken,” I repeated.
Detective Atwood stayed silent, but I could almost see the gears in his head turning as he processed my words. Disbelief seemed to war with the desire to believe me, but based on the tightness in his expression, disbelief was winning.
The same female officer we’d seen earlier threw open the door to the records room.
“Sir, we’ve got news about the vic’s body,” she said as she came to a stop in front of Detective Atwood.
When she cast a curious glance my way, he said, “Give me your report.”
She straightened and saluted, putting two fingers in a sideways V across her chest. “One of his colleagues came in not twenty minutes ago and identified the victim as Arthur Knight, a professor in the science department at AIR University.”
Detective Atwood’s mouth fell open, and he stood in silence for a full two seconds.
Instead of giving him an “I told you so” look, I repeated the victim’s name in my head until it stuck. Arthur Knight was killed at night.
“Sir?” the female officer asked.
He snapped his mouth shut. “Is there anything else?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Thank you. You may return to your station.” As soon as the woman hurried away, Detective Atwood turned to me. “Blighted aether, Poppy. That’s insane.” He shook his head and whistled. “If I thought I didn’t understand women before, you just took things to a whole new level.”
A thrill ran through me at the admiration, and shock, in his gaze. While I hadn’t told him the full truth, his reaction was still better than I would’ve believed possible. “So, you believe me now?”
He chewed on his lip, then nodded once. “You’ve given me little room for doubt.”
But the gleam in his eye hinted at something he wasn’t sharing. I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut again. If I wanted to stay, I’d be better off not asking about things he clearly didn’t want to talk about.
“We need to get you to a sketch artist,” Detective Atwood said, “but before that, we need to talk.”
My chest fluttered. I’d done it. I’d convinced him to let me help. “About?”
“If we do this, I have some conditions.”
“Which are?”
“First of all, when we’re out on a case, you have to do exactly what I say when I say it. If I say hide, you hide. If I say run, you run. No arguing.” His gaze dropped to the hidden pocket in my boot where my knife rested, and he added wryly, “Not that I don’t think you can defend yourself, but if your life is in my hands, I have to know you’ll listen.”
So he’d noticed. “Fair enough.”
“You also aren’t allowed to talk about the case to anyone else. Anything shared with you is strictly confidential.”
“Noted.”
“And as an unofficial helper, you won’t be compensated by the city.”