life was in her two children. There hadn't been time to see all of her reasons, all of her logic. I still didn't know why she had drawn me into this entire business—but I knew that it was, ultimately, because she loved her two kids.
And that was all I really needed, that and one other connection, the nagging resemblance to someone that I had noticed in her at my office. The rest fell into place from there.
It took Monica Sells a moment to recover herself. She did it with remarkable speed, as though she were a woman used to drawing on a mask again after having it knocked off. "I … I'm sorry, Mr. Dresden." She lifted her chin, and regarded me with a fragile, wounded pride. "What do you want here?"
"A couple of things," I told her. I stooped down to recover my staff, my rod. "I want my lock of hair back. I want to know why you came to me last Thursday, why you dragged me into this mess. And I want to know who killed Tommy Tomm and Jennifer Stanton and Linda Randall."
Monica's eyes grew even duller, and her face paled. "Linda's dead?"
"Last night," I told her. "And someone's planning on taking me out the same way, the next chance they get."
Outside, in the far distance, thunder rumbled. Another storm was in the works, slowly building. When it got to town, I was a dead man. It was as simple as that.
I looked back to Monica Sells, and it was all over her face—she knew about the storm just as well as I did. She knew about it, and there was a sort of sad and weary frustration in her eyes.
"You have to go, Mr. Dresden," she said. "You can't be here when … You've got to go, before it's too late."
I stepped toward her. "You're the only chance I have, Monica. I asked you once before to trust me. You've got to do it again. You've got to know that I'm not here to hurt you or your—"
A door opened, in the hallway behind Monica. A girl, on the gawky end of preadolescence, with hair the color of her mother's, leaned out into the hallway. "Mom?" she said in a quavering voice. "Mom, are you okay? Do you want me to call the police?" A boy, perhaps a year or two younger than his sister, poked his head out, too. He was carrying a well-used basketball in his hands, turning it in nervous little gestures.
I looked back to Monica. Her eyes were closed. There were tears coming, trailing down her cheeks. It took her a moment, but she drew in a breath and spoke to the girl in a clear, calm voice, without turning around. "I'm fine," she told them. "Jenny, Billy, get back into the room and lock the door. I mean it."
"But Mom—" the boy began.
"Now," Monica said. Her voice was strained.
Jenny put a hand on her brother's shoulder. "C'mon, Billy." She looked at me for just a moment. Her eyes were too old and too knowing for a child her age. "C'mon." The two vanished back into the room, closed the door, and locked it behind them.
Monica waited until they were gone, and then broke down into more tears. "Please. Please, Mr. Dresden. You have to go. If you're here when the storm comes, if he knows …" She buried her face in her hands and made a quiet, croaking sound.
I stepped closer to her. I had to have her help. No matter how much pain she was in, no matter what kind of agony she was going through, I had to have her help. And I thought I knew the names to invoke to get it.
I can be such a bastard sometimes.
"Monica. Please. I'm up against a wall. I'm out of options. Everything I have leads here. To you. And I don't have time to wait. I need your help, before I wind up just like Jennifer and Tommy and Linda." I sought her eyes, and she looked up at me without turning her gaze away. "Please. Help me." I watched her eyes, saw the fear and the grief and the weariness there. I saw her look at me as I leaned on her, and demanded more out of her than she could afford to give.
"All right," she whispered. She turned away and walked toward the kitchen. "All right. I'll tell you what I know, wizard. But there's nothing I can