Near Miss

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Target

"Would you help me here?"

Durand cocked his head, looking quizzically at Sylvie's load of papers. "Are you supposed to come in here?"

"We went through this last time," Sylvie said in exasperation. "Maddox lets me in, okay? I'm supposed to go in there, yes. Also, I have an idea."

Durand seemed skeptical, but he opened the door nonetheless. Trying not to drop any loose sheets, Sylvie stepped inside. As soon as she'd passed over the threshold, she stubbed her toe on the edge of a rolling cart, spilling all the papers onto the floor.

"Sylvie!" Fabian cried, disproportionately horrified by the papers scattered across the floor. "Here, let me help you pick these up..." Dropping to the ground, he scrambled around, lifting loose sheets of newspaper and carefully folding them together.

Sylvie let out a quiet noise of disgust, ignoring the throbbing pain in her foot. "This is going to take forever to sort through," she sighed. "I even had them all in order..."

Running his fingers through those papers he had gathered up, Fabian passed Sylvie the stack with a thoughtful frown. "What even are these? Is this-" he glanced at the headline doubtfully. "This one's the Seattle Times..."

"Yeah, I know," Sylvie said darkly. "I asked Maddox to get me a list of all the suspicious events that were reported last week- that's here." She waved a small piece of paper. "And then I went to the library and managed to get some papers from around the same time."

"Seattle Times?" Fabian sighed. "Why do you need the Seattle Times?"

Sylvie grinned. "I want to check for any important crimes."

"Crimes? Why do you want important crimes from Seattle?" Magdalen said intently, easing herself to a seat. "Did something happen?"

Sylvie wasn't sure quite how to explain. After a moment, she said flatly, "I was talking with a friend of mine about the case, and we had this idea about the motive."

"An idea?" Magdalen sounded cautiously optimistic, but it was hard to tell. "What idea?"

"Well, we were saying how obvious it was that someone was trying to kill you... and that if you did die, the police would be going over everything. They'd find out pretty much immediately why anyone would have killed you, right?"

"I guess so..." Magdalen said doubtfully. "I mean, they probably would end up going through all my things..."

"Right, exactly!" Sylvie said triumphantly. "Anyway, we had this idea- if someone wants to kill you, Magdalen, why are they being so complicated about it? It's obvious now that someone is actually trying, so it kind of takes that idea out of the picture."

"What?" Magdalen said uneasily. "So... then... why would they want to kill me?"

"Well, they don't want to inherit anything," Sylvie dismissed. "And it can't be hate, because then the carbon monoxide wouldn't fit. They'd want to murder you terribly, right?"

Magdalen gulped.

Sylvie shifted, trying to rephrase. "I mean, carbon monoxide was just an idea to get you out of the way, right? But the knife and the letter bomb would be nasty and spiteful. Honestly, whoever it is, they don't care how they kill you- they just want you dead."

"Well, that's comforting," Magdalen said dryly. "What's your point?"

"They want you dead," Sylvie said confusingly, "but they don't want to kill you."

"What do you mean?" Fabian said eagerly.

"You know something, don't you, Magdalen?" Sylvie accused. "You know something, and you're being targeted because of it. Someone doesn't want you to talk."