Ghostly Echoes (Jackaby #3)(22)

A worn leather file lay within, several inches thick with papers. I glanced over my shoulder, but the house was still and silent. Quietly I lifted the hefty dossier and set it on the desk. A thin leather strap was wrapped loosely around the bundle, and this I unwound tenderly. Only a peek, I told myself, and then I would put it back.

The collection was subdivided into smaller files, and I recognized the one at the top as the same sort Jackaby often used for his general records. I had organized enough case files to know. Farther down, the papers were yellowed and much older than any stationery we kept about the house.

When I flipped open the first file, newspaper clippings and lithographs stared up at me. Among them I was startled to find my own face. My cheek was not yet marred by the little scar, but the images were recent. In one photograph, torn from a newspaper, I marched sullenly through the lobby of a building. My hands were locked in handcuffs, and Jackaby was at my side looking unperturbed by the matching pair around his own wrists. I remembered the scene. It was the Emerald Arch Apartments. Our first case together.

I picked up the next photograph. A fire-damaged cabinet card showed Jackaby and me on either side of a tree in a forest clearing. Hank Hudson, the burly trapper, stood just behind me, and a fourth figure hung upside down above us, his legs wrapped awkwardly around a tree branch and his face shrouded and blurred by his flopping coat. I smiled. Beneath that coat was Charlie Barker. The moment seemed funny out of context, cast in sepia hues, without the grisly red of a slaughtered animal painting the forest around us. It had not been such an amusing sight in person. The woman behind the camera, Nellie Fuller, had lost her life reaching the bottom of that mystery. Our second case.

Not a single portrait hung on Jackaby’s walls. Unlike the mayor, who adorned his study with images of his wife and dear friends, Jackaby had no one. The closest he came were busts of Shakespeare and paintings of old folktales. I was oddly touched. These were not the most flattering pictures, but they were pictures of me—pictures of us—and hidden away or not, he had saved them.

I dug further. There were newspaper articles detailing other grim cases Jackaby had worked on, a blurry photograph of the house in which we sat, and a tattered wanted poster featuring Jackaby’s smiling face. One of the images was of a pleasant if somewhat stuffy-looking man in a prim waistcoat standing proudly beside Jackaby. Something about him was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place the face. An unnerving sensation that I was not alone tickled across my brain.

I closed the file and glanced guiltily behind me. Douglas had waddled into the doorway. He acknowledged me with a bob of his feathered head and then flapped up into the armchair across the room, where he settled to rest with his bill under one wing.

Taking a deep breath, I picked up the next file. This one contained comparatively little—a slim notebook and a few creased papers. I held them up to read the writing at the top. They were formal documents. PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION was printed in large face across the top, but the patient’s name was not Jackaby’s. “ ‘Eleanor Clark,’ ” I read aloud. As if in answer to my whisper, a little brown envelope slid out from behind the documents and off the desk. I made a futile grab for it, but it swooped through my fingers and came to land on the carpet.

“Miss Rook?”

Jackaby dropped his satchel in the doorway with a thump. I froze. He looked at the dossier on the desk. He looked at me. His face grew cold. Without another word, he knelt and retrieved the envelope, holding it as gingerly as if it were made of fine glass. He placed it back into the file very deliberately.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Jackaby. I didn’t mean to—”

“Then put it back.”

I nodded and closed the dossier.

“I have given you free rein to my home and offices with very few exceptions, Miss Rook.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I—”

“I could, perhaps, have been more explicit, but I felt that several inches of solid metal and a rotary combination lock implied my intentions clearly enough.”

“Of course, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”

“How did you open it?” he demanded.

“I didn’t mean to. It was unlocked. I just—”

“It is never unlocked! I have taken great pains to ensure—” His eyes sunk into dark shadows beneath a sober brow. “You are not lying,” he said at last. “I don’t know if I find that more troubling or less so.” He stepped forward and took the bundle out of my hands. “How much did you see?”

“I only just picked it up when you came in, really.”

He walked slowly around his desk. I held my breath. He placed the dossier back onto the desktop and settled into his chair to lean heavily on his elbows. “You should have left it alone.”

“What is this, sir? Is it a case? I recognized the photograph from Gad’s Valley. I didn’t know any of those survived the fire. If they’re connected . . .”

“It’s not a case,” he breathed, and I could see that he was deciding how much more to explain. He placed a hand gently on the leather. “I am a steward to something much older than myself, Miss Rook, and that role comes with responsibilities.”

“You mean your sight?”

“I do.” He brushed the dossier with his fingertips. “This collection is a perpetual record of the Seer.”