We scrubbed our hands, arms, and every inch of exposed skin for about 15 minutes before the stinging subsided and the yellow gunk was gone from Dukes’ arm—although it left burns. Then Dukes found us some spare shirts and sweatpants to change into. Rachel and I changed in a bathroom and stuffed our clothes into plastic bags. Maybe I’d get them analyzed. Maybe I’d just burn them.
When we emerged from the bathroom, Dukes was pouring himself a glass of vodka. “Drink?”
“No, thanks.” I wasn’t sure I could drive home even if I was sober. Dukes brought us glasses of ice water.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his head and poured himself another drink. “I had no idea.”
“Not your fault.” I gulped some water. “Rachel?”
She glared at me. “It didn’t have any mind to read. Just—instinct. It wanted to feed. On us.”
“On me.” Dukes downed some more vodka.
I sighed. “It can’t be a coincidence. Not after I asked Lillian Floria about your cat.”
“She tried to kill me over a cat?” He pounded the table, almost knocking over our glasses. “She really must be crazy.”
This was getting a little too serious. “You have a neighbor named Devon Hatler. Did you know him?”
“Yeah, I met him a couple of times when he was walking Hodor. His dog. Didn’t he . . .” Dukes blinked. “Wait, are you saying—”
“He disappeared. And his house is right next to Lillian’s.”
“Huh.” He looked at the vodka bottle, then screwed the cap back on.
“So what now, Sherlock?” Rachel kicked me under the table.
“Hell if I know, Watson.” I wasn’t up to confronting Lillian tonight. Maybe not ever. I stood up. “Let’s go home and sleep on it.”
Dukes stood up and shook Rachel’s hand, and mine. “Thanks. Don’t forget your pie.”
We had pie for breakfast the next morning.
“This is good!” Rachel swallowed a forkful of blueberry. “Forget the check, he can just pay us in pie.”
“I’m still not sure what I should do.” I was eating the apple pie.
“Yeah, even Anita wouldn’t believe you on this one.” Detective Anita Sharpe and I wor together with the Chicago Police Department on vampires and other supernatural problems. But a giant carnivorous plant that shot up from the ground? I didn’t need Rachel’s psychic powers to hear her laughter.
But Lillian had apparently killed Hatler. Or maybe her son had sent the plant after him. Getting mixed up with a mob lawyer wasn’t exactly on my bucket list. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had to do something. I just didn’t know what.
After breakfast we went to our office to do some work. I had some background checks on my to-do list—not as exciting as fighting giant man-eating plants, but much more relaxing.
After an hour my phone buzzed. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“Mr. Jurgen? It’s Erick. Erick Dennison? I was at Ms. Floria’s house yesterday.”
Uh-oh. “Yes, Erick. What can I do for you?”
“I, uh, I need to talk to you.”
Double uh-oh. “What about?”
“Can you come out to my house? Around one o’clock? I live a few blocks away from Ms. Floria.”
I stifled a sigh. “I’ll be there.”
“Now what?” Rachel turned as I hung up.
I shrugged. “This kid who works in Lillian Floria’s greenhouse. Wants to talk to me about something.” Great—another drive out to Glen Ellyn. I wondered if I should start charging for mileage—except I’d already officially quit the case.
“You want me to come?”
I checked the time—9:57. “I have to leave by noon. If you’re ready, sure. Otherwise, no problem.”
She snorted. “Two hours? Let me show you how fast I can work.”
Rachel drove us in her Prius. “This is the kind of car a hotshot private eye should drive. Check out that mileage!”
I eyed the traffic. “Yeah. Watch out for that truck—”
We made it to Erick’s house in one piece. Three blocks from Lillian Floria’s house, it had two stories, a big front yard, and no garden in front. We parked on the street and walked up to the front door.
Erick opened it, looking around nervously. “Hi, Mr. Jurgen, thanks for—uh, hello.”
Rachel wore jeans, boots, and a denim jacket over a black T-shirt. I couldn’t exactly blame Erick for temporarily losing his ability to use words.
“Hi, I’m Rachel.” She smiled and held out her hand. “I work with Tom.”
We went into a small living room with a piano and so many family photos on the walls I could hardly see the wallpaper. Erick sat down in a worn easy chair. “My mom’s at work. She’s a nurse.”
We sat on a comfortable, well-used sofa. “So what can we do for you, Erick?”
“I went by the house this morning. I have class in the afternoon, but I’m skipping it today.” He looked vaguely ashamed. “Please don’t let anyone know.”
“He can keep a secret.” Rachel nudged my shoulder.
“Anyway . . .” He looked at the floor. “The greenhouse is where she keeps her big plants. Her . . . experiments.”
“What kind of experiments?”
He ignored the question, as if trying to tell the story as fast as he could before he lost his nerve. “The ground was all torn up by this one plant. She calls it Tanya. And anyway, it looked hurt, like something had burned it, and most of its petals were gone, which shouldn’t happen. At least not in the greenhouse, and it didn’t happen there. And its throat was injured.”
He looked inside the thing’s throat? Braver than me. “What kind of plant is it?”
“Then I looked outside, and there was dirt turned over in the yard. It went right up to the fence—Mr. Dukes’ house, I think? I fixed it the best I could. Then I did what I could for Tanya, and took care of the rest of the plants. Ms. Floria was inside. So I called you.” He shivered.
“Does she know what you saw?” Rachel peered at him. But even I could see that he was telling the truth.
Erick nodded. “I told her about the petals and the throat. And how I cleaned up the yard. She just put on her gloves and said she’d take care of Tanya the rest of the day. I don’t need to go back. She paid me.” He shuddered. “I don’t know if I want to go back. But we need the money.”
“Okay.” I leaned forward. “Erick—what kind of plants is she breeding in there?”
He took a deep breath. “She calls them Triffids. From some old movieor something. But what they are is—they eat things. And they can, you know, move around.”
Like the rubber plant inside her front door that had touched me. “What do they eat?”
“I have to feed them—live rats.” He shuddered again. “Every two, three days. But like I say, they move around, so we keep them tagged. I mean, most of the time they stay put, but they can burrow in the ground. Mostly they stay in the yard, but other times I can’t tell where they go.”
He looked at us. Then he looked away. “This is crazy, right? But I looked up your website. It says you—”
“Crazy is my business, yeah.” Maybe Rachel and my mom were right about me becoming an accountant. “Erick, how long has she been doing this?”
He leaned back. “I’ve been working for her two years. They were small enough for pots then. I had to plant them in the soil when they got big enough. She’s got this book, but she won’t let me see it. And she does a lot of the plant work herself, I just help with the heavy lifting. You know?”
I tried to think. “Erick, I believe you. Let me just ask a few more questions, okay? Was Tanya tagged when you looked at her this morning?”
Erick shook his head. “No. She was back where it usually is, and the others were sleeping.”
“Where does Ms. Floria keep her book?” That came from Rachel.
“Locked in a box inside the house. I can’t get into it. I never tried.”
She nodded. “That’s smart.”
Yeah. I scratched my nose. “Okay, thanks, Erick. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but you’ve been a big help.” I stood up.
“Don’t go back there.” Rachel stood up too.
Erick blinked. “But—what do I tell my mom?”
“Anything. An allergy, maybe?” She smiled. “Look, Erick, I’m not just Tom’s assistant, and I’m not just his girlfriend. I can sense things. I’m sort of psychic. And I know that place is bad. You should stay away. Is there a Starbucks in town?”
“Uh—okay.” He looked at a clock on the piano. “Maybe I can still make my afternoon class.”
“What are you majoring in?” I asked.
“Biology. That’s how—anyway, thanks for coming out. And listening to me.”
We shook hands again. “Sure thing.”
“What are we looking for again?” Dukes shoved a shovel into the dirt. The sun was hot overhead.
“Some kind of tag.” I was on my hands and knees in the back yard, searching the grass with my hands, Rachel right next to me. “It fell off the thing last night. If we could find it—”
“It might be buried underground.” He stared at the fence. “I didn’t see any tag. I didn’t see anything.”
“I know. It’s worth looking.” I stood up. “I’ll dig if you want.” He was the client, after all.
“No, it’s okay.” He pushed his foot against the shovel. “That thing last night—”
“Wait.” Rachel leaned down. “I think I’ve got it.”
“Thank god.” Dukes dropped his shovel and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.
She sat up, sweat running down her arms. Psychic powers or luck? I didn’t care. The tag was blue plastic, attached to a thin metal link. After spitting on it and rubbing the dirt off I could see a few numbers—and the word TANYA.
“She names them?” Dukes looked over the fence. “Well—we name our pets, I guess. It’s just—weird.”
“More than weird.” I slid the tag into my back pocket as Rachel picked up her jacket.
We went inside. “So what now?” Rachel flicked water at my face in the bathroom as we washed our hands.
“I don’t know.” The only thing I could think of was the one thing I didn’t want to do. I dried off. “Maybe we should just go home.”
Dukes poured us ice tea in the kitchen. “Look, it’s just about a cat. And she’s just an old lady. How about I make a pie?”
“It’s not just the cat.” I sat down and gulped from the glass. “Thanks. I mean, I’m sorry about Precious, but Lillian Floria tried to kill you—us—last night. And she probably killed Devon Hatler. If she’s using those things as weapons, for herself or for—” I hadn’t told Dukes about her son’s Outfit connection—“anyone else, she has to be stopped.” I rubbed my head. “But I don’t know if we can call the cops about this.”
Rachel sipped her ice tea. “So what do we do? Do we burn the place down?”
Tempting. But arson was outside of my comfort zone. I pulled the tag out of my back pocket. “This might get her talking.”
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