“I could afford it,” Ebel agreed. “But the buyer’s methods lack class.” He seemed like he’d more to say but stopped to quietly sneeze in the elegant way only noblemen could. Embarrassed, he apologized. “Forgive me. An odd smell has been tickling my nose since entering the room…”
“I know what you mean. There’s something snooty about this smell; it’s grating on my nerves.” Phoebe scrunched up his nose.
A sweet smell hung thick in Krister’s apartment. It had a faint but unique scent, like smoked wood. Rock felt as if she’d smelled the same scent years ago.
“What kind of scent is this?” Rock asked the room.
Ebel was first to answer.
“Fragrant wood.”
“What’s that…?”
“It’s an incense made from sweet-smelling trees. And it’s an incredibly high-quality one too.”
No wonder why it smelled like smoked wood then. Yet, it didn’t quite smell smoky and had a slightly sweet scent, which gave it the qualities of an expensive fragrance.
“People who enjoy this smell often burn the incense in their rooms or perfume their clothes with it.” Ebel frowned as he continued, “This kind of incense is almost always imported. It’s far from cheap.”
“It’s the kind you have to cough up a mountain of gold coins just to buy one of this size,” Phoebe explained, pointing to his pinky finger. He might have had big, bony fingers, but it still wasn’t big enough to adequately convey the scent’s expense.
Rock grimaced.
“For his room to have such an expensive smell must mean—”
“It’s likely the smell of a customer who came here.”
“And I’m willing to bet it’s the wealthy customer who dumped a pile of money on him to make robes,” Phoebe finished, his thoughts in perfect sync with Ebel’s.
Rock gleaned just how rich this customer was from Krister’s ledger. Someone who could pay in advance for a huge order of thirty robes, frequently paid for expenses along the way, and had money to spare for the luxury of perfuming their clothes with incense had to be as wealthy as a nobleman.
The problem at hand was if and how this person was related to Krister’s disappearance, but the answer still eluded them.
And something else bothered Rock.
“The ledger doesn’t state if he delivered the goods.”
Flipping through all the old transactions showed Rock Krister made a point of recording when he’d delivered the goods. Only this most recent job lacked any record of being delivered. And if that wasn’t weird enough, any kind of record stopped being made two weeks ago.
“He hasn’t written a thing since the day he came to my apartment.”
The last time anyone recalled seeing him was during the following morning. Something that triggered Krister’s disappearance may have happened that day.
“I don’t think Krister ran for it,” Rock told the other two her thoughts. Sure, a piece of her hoped that was the case, but she drew her conclusions solely from her experience as a tailor. “Neither thirty robes nor the materials to make them are in this building right now. But it’s physically impossible to flee carrying all of that. It’d be too much baggage.”
Maybe that’d be a slightly different story for someone with superhuman strength like Ebel, but Krister had sticks for arms. It was unlikely he was able to escape without anyone noticing him hauling off thirty blue robes.
“What’re the chances he delivered the product but didn’t have time to record it?” Phoebe asked, too cautious to jump to conclusions. “He might’ve just been in too big a rush to deal with it.”
“If that was the case, then he shouldn’t have had the time to open his stall during the morning after he dropped by my place.”
Although he wasn’t out long, Krister still did business the next day. That was why all his troublesome customers ended up at Rock’s shop.
“And then we have these rental books.” Aside from all the other evidence she had, the books were the main reason why Rock wanted to believe in Krister. “Would someone who’s planning to make a run for it really borrow books like these?”
She picked up several of the books on the South. History books, culture books, climate books, and even lullabies and fairy tales—he clearly had an interest in the South.
She didn’t know how Krister perceived the way a book rental shop did business. Knowing him, maybe he thought he could borrow as much as he could and never return, so he didn’t have to pay the fees. But even if that’s how he planned to treat the rentals, Nisha still remained the only reason he would pick books on these topics.
“But if he didn’t run for it, then…” Phoebe pushed his chestnut-colored hair up, inhaled, then continued, “…we’re dealing with more than one person. It’d be a skilled group, too.”
“What makes you say that, Phoebe?”
“Look at the floor. There were bloodstains outside, but it’s sparkling clean here.”
In other words, if Krister was hurt by someone, then that someone had enough time to kidnap an adult male, carry away thirty robes and sewing tools, and even scrub the possibly bloodstained floors.
“If that’s true, then they’re frighteningly skilled.”
Rock shuddered as she imagined what might’ve happened here. Ebel gently rested his hand on her shoulder.
“Whether he delivered the goods or not, we need to identify the customer. As far as we know, that’s the last person Krister met.”
Rock and Phoebe both nodded.
“Good point. If only we could find them…”
“There aren’t many clues. If only we knew the embroidery design…”
Father and daughter exchanged looks, furrowing their brows at the same time. Then, suddenly, Ebel’s glowing golden eyes darted toward the gaping door.
“…Someone’s coming.”
The werewolf count’s ears picked up on a sound Rock’s could not. Phoebe seemed not to hear it either, but he acted fast. He blew out the lantern fire and stealthily looked outside through the door.
“I can’t see anyone yet, but…I think our time is up. How do you want to do this?”
“Let’s escape to the roof. Whoever they may be, we don’t want to get caught here,” Ebel said, pushing open the broken door without making a sound. Then he turned to Rock, who followed behind him and whispered, “Don’t make a sound.”
Thanks to that warning, Rock barely swallowed her cry when his arm wrapped around her waist and yanked her to him. Ebel easily ascended Krister’s roof with Rock in one arm. Then he reached down with his free hand and pulled Phoebe up. The three of them crouched on the dark rooftop and waited with bated breath.