Lance placed his injured hand gingerly on the table and leaned forward. “Who the fuck are you?”
Alex held his gaze. “I’m the only person who thinks you didn’t kill Tara. So help me figure out who did before Turner loses patience, shuffles me out that door, and leaves you to rot.”
Lance’s eyes darted back and forth between Alex and Turner. At last he said, “I didn’t hurt her. I loved her.”
Like those things couldn’t go hand in hand. “When did you start working with Sveta Myers?”
Lance shifted in his seat. He obviously didn’t like that they knew that name. “I don’t remember. Two years back? Tara went up there for a plant sale, got to chatting with her. They got on real good, talking about community gardening and shit. We sold to her for a while, then we started growing with her, giving her a cut.”
“Tell us about the Merity,” Alex said.
“The what?”
“You weren’t just growing cush. What did you grow for Blake Keely?”
“That model guy? He was always sniffing around Tara, flashing cash like he’s a celebrity. I can’t stand that asshole.”
Alex didn’t know how she felt about finding common ground with Lance Gressang.
“What were you growing for him?” Turner pushed.
“It wasn’t for him. Not at first. We were selling green to his frat for a while—none of this shit is admissible, all right? It’s all off the record?” Turner waved him on. “Nothing special. Dime bags, twenty bags. The usual shit. Then this year, this girl Katie shows up—”
Alex sat forward. “Kate Masters?”
“Yeah. Blond, real cute, but kinda butch?”
“Tell me more about your taste in women.”
“Really?”
“No, you ass. What did Katie want?”
“She wanted to know where we were growing and if Tara could make some space at the greenhouses for something new. Some medicinal shit, had all these specific rules about moisture or I don’t know what. Tara got real into working on it with Sveta. Took a minute but eventually it started growing pretty well. I tried some of it once. Didn’t even give me a buzz.”
Jesus. Lance Gressang had gotten his hands on Merity and he hadn’t even known it. When Alex thought of the damage he might have done if he’d realized the control it could give him over others… But someone else had gotten there first.
“You thought it was worthless,” said Alex. “A shit buzz. So you sold it to Blake.”
“Yeah,” Gressang said, grinning.
“And what did you think when he came back for more?”
Gressang shrugged. “Happy to take his money.”
“Did Kate Masters know you sold Merity to Blake?”
“Nah, she was real uptight. Told us it was poisonous and whatever, not to mess with it. I knew she’d be pissed if she found out. But Blake kept hitting us up for more, and then he brings this other guy around who wants to know if we can get mushrooms.”
“Who?” Turner asked Lance. But Alex already knew what Lance was going to say.
Lance wriggled in his seat. He looked uneasy, almost scared.
“It was Colin Khatri, wasn’t it?” said Alex. “From Scroll and Key.”
“Yeah. He…” Lance leaned back. The bravado had gone from him. He looked at the wall as if expecting to find some kind of answer there. The clock was ticking, but Alex and Turner stayed quiet. “I didn’t know what we were starting.”
“Tell me,” said Turner. “Tell me how it began.”
“Tara was at the greenhouses all the time,” Lance said haltingly. “Coming home late, staying up to try mixing shit, putting the mushrooms together with I don’t know what. She had this little yellow dish Colin gave her. Called it her witch’s cauldron. Colin couldn’t get enough of the tabs she made. He kept coming back for more.”
“Tabs?” asked Turner. “I thought you were dealing with mushrooms.”
“Tara distilled that shit down. It wasn’t acid. I don’t know what it was.” Lance rubbed his good hand up his other arm, and Alex could see his skin had puckered with goosebumps. “We wanted to know what Colin was using it for, but he was real cagey about it. So Tara’s like, guess I won’t be cooking for you guys anymore.” Lance held his hands out like he was pleading with Alex. “I told her. I told her to just leave it alone, just keep taking Colin’s cash.”
“But it wasn’t enough,” Alex said. Rather die than doubt. Tara had sensed something big at play and she’d wanted to be part of it. “So what happened?”
“Colin caved.” Alex couldn’t tell if he sounded more smug or regretful. “One weekend, he and his buddies come get us at the apartment. We all take the tabs Tara made and then they blindfold us and take us into this building, this room. It was real pretty, with these screens with, like, Jewish stars on them, and the roof was open so you could see the skies.” Alex had been in that room the night of the failed Locksmith ritual, when they’d tried to get to Budapest. Had they staged the whole thing knowing it wouldn’t work without Tara’s tabs? “We stand in a circle at this round table and they start chanting in, like, I don’t know, Arabic maybe and the table just… opens up.”
“Like a passage?” asked Turner.
Lance was shaking his head. “No, no. You don’t understand: There was no bottom. It was night down there—some other night—and night up top, our night. It was all stars.” There was real awe in his voice. “We walked through and we were standing on a mountaintop. You could see for miles. It was so clear you could see the bend in the horizon. It was incredible. I was sick as shit the next day, though. And, God, we smelled. It didn’t wash off for days.” Lance sighed and said, “I guess it just went on from there. Colin and that whole crew wanted Tara to keep cooking up her stuff for them. We wanted to keep tripping. Tara wanted to see the world. I only wanted to fuck around. We went to the Amazon, Morocco, those hot pools in Iceland. We went to New Orleans for New Year’s. It was like the best video game ever.” Lance released a little laugh. “Colin couldn’t figure out how Tara was mixing the shit. He acted like he thought it was funny, but I could tell it pissed him off.”
Alex tried to reconcile this Colin—greedy, jealous, tripping with drug dealers—with the ambitious, perfectly groomed boy she’d seen at Belbalm’s house. Where had he thought this would end?
“How did Blake and Colin know each other?” Alex asked. She couldn’t imagine them hanging out.
Lance shrugged. “Lacrosse or some shit?”
Lacrosse. Colin seemed so distinctly un-jocklike it was hard to picture. Had he seen one of Blake’s nasty little videos and recognized Merity the way Alex had? The Locksmiths’ magic had started to fail. The nexus beneath their tomb wasn’t working anymore and they were desperate for ways to open portals. And Colin—bright, friendly, polished Colin—hadn’t reported what Blake had been doing with the Merity. He hadn’t stopped him from hurting girls. Instead, he’d seized an opportunity for himself and his society.
“What about Tripp Helmuth?” said Turner. It felt strange to ask about rosy-cheeked, good-vibes-only Tripp, but Alex was glad he wasn’t ruling anyone out.
“Who?”
“Rich kid,” said Alex, “sailing team, always seems to have a tan?”
“That could be a lot of guys around Yale.”
Alex didn’t think he was playing dumb, but she couldn’t be sure.
“The other day you opened a portal in the jail,” said Turner.
“I had a tab on me when you guys picked me up.” Lance grinned. “Plenty of places to stash something that small.”
“Why not just escape?” asked Turner. “Go to Cuba or something?”
“What the fuck would I do in Cuba?” Lance asked. “Besides, you can’t portal big distances from anywhere but the table.”