Page 37 of The Familiar Stranger

“Please, go on,” I said.

“I think bout the one dat got put away fo his crimes, the human traffic man who done got kilt in prison. Hugh Barnes. And dat’s when I know.” She tapped the side of her head. “Dis one who come fo you now, he’s angry at you, girl. For what happened to his life. For what happened to his friend, dat Barnes.”

My eyes shot wide open. “He’s friends with Hugh Barnes?”

“Are you saying this guy is a human trafficker too?” Maddie blurted out.

The old woman bobbed her head left to right. “Mmm, not so sure. Maybe not all da way. Maybe back in da day. Not sure bout dat. But he is a killah!”

The force of her words unsettled me, and I pushed back the urge to shudder. “So, this man was going to hurt me through Grady. And you sensed it. How did you try to warn Grady?”

Her crooked finger found me once more as she said, “I left a note.”

CHAPTER26

I left the doctor’s house on shaky legs, all the pieces flying together in a whirlwind of revelations and maybe even some regrets.

“I’d like to catch a cab back to the hotel instead of walking,” I told Maddie. “Can you …?”

I pointed at her phone.

“I’ll call for a driver, sure. And I feel ya. I just want to crawl in a hole and bring you with me.”

I’d had my doubts about going to see Dr. Beetle, but now I was glad Maddie had pressed the issue. We learned more about this case—I guessed that’s what it was now—than I’d ever expected to learn from our woo-woo connection.

Dr. Beetle’s note had been written with care, well thought out, she’d assured us. Of course, in my world, I would have been far more direct and told him to call me as soon as he got the message. But not in Beetle’s world, and I had to respect that. I remembered how, back at her house, I’d even thought we were similar in a couple of ways. Protectors for good and fighters against the shadows of evil. And we both trusted our instincts.

Her note to Grady had said:

Eyes wide, stay inside.

Fear, for terror is here.

Dr. Beetle

And the crazy thing was, she’d signed it straight-up as Dr. Beetle. Full name, clear as day. And I knew it was clear as day because she rewrote the whole thing for us. When I’d asked her if it was written exactly like the original note, she shot me one of those blank looks that said,O’ course it’s exact. You take me fo da fool?And she’d even rewritten it on the same paper as the original—a torn square of parchment paper, a pile of which she had in an old writing desk, which reeked of oldness and incense and candles.

As Maddie called it, “the Dr. Beetle Smell.”

I still clutched the mock note in my fist, and I opened my hand. Brought the parchment paper up to my nose and took a long sniff. The scent seemed to be ingrained in the paper itself. It smelled just like Andi’s note. And there was a good chance it was the same smell Almond had said was on Harmony’s note.

The man had been in Dr. Beetle’s home, and not just for the paper. While there, he’d stolen her hand-carved walking cane with a massive tiger’s eye stone on the handle. She’d had to get a substitute because she needed it more and more these days to get around town. The cane wasn’t just some old walking stick, either. It meant a lot to her—that much, she’d made clear.

The old woman’s handwriting was neat, which came as a surprise, and I couldn’t be sure until I’d done some comparing, but it didn’t look like the handwriting on either Harmony’s or Andi’s notes. I’d bet that was the case for Kim’s note as well.

There had been no mention of a note found near Grady, so I had to assume the police had chosen not to reveal it to the public yet … or the killer had seen it and snatched it up, taking it with him.

And then it clicked.

If the killer had seen the note, whether he’d taken it or not, it had to have been the kickstart to his idea to leave similar notes for others, notes intended for me to find.

Creative.

Clever.

It also suggested he was better at stealing ideas from others than coming up with them on his own, which further confirmed my profile of this man. He thought he was untouchable and brilliant. He enjoyed toying with people—it made him feel worthy and daring and wise—and he cared little about those he hurt along the way. All he cared about was that his games could continue and that he got what he wanted in the end.

Deep down, as Dr. Beetle had alluded to, this man was angry. In his mind, he’d lost some important things that mattered to him because of me, things that defined him or kept him steady, at least. And other than Hugh Barnes, I wasn’t sure who or what that might be—a child, a parent, a job …

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