13
Ridley’s mind remained fixed on the flash drive hiding in her pocket as she paced Kayne’s Antiques for most of the morning. Even while cleaning the graffiti someone had decided to decorate their front door with during the night, she couldn’t turn her thoughts away from the one piece of evidence proving her friend wasn’t a murderer. She scrubbed away every letter of the word ‘magicist’—a slur that showed up on the exterior of their building at least once every few months—and went back inside the store to continue her pacing.
By the time Dad returned around midday, she was itching to leave. She told him she was heading out to Meera’s, which was, in fact, partly true. She would go to Meera’s straight after sharing the video that was currently burning a figurative hole in her pocket. She
