The Witch's Doll ⚢

Chapter 17

A/N

I feel a little better since last week! Hence, chapter for this week's early. Hope you like it!

"You have quite a nice name for your cover," she said upon her unexpected entrance. "Although Lea Cruz alludes to your old fascination with Halea Halcyon and your silver cross jewelry. A genius won't be necessary for people to connect the dots."

It has only been an hour since she parted ways with Evonnie and she headed straight towards the Welsh woman's office at around four in the afternoon.

Isla uncrossed her arms and rested one on her hip. "Is the lilac dye supposed to be a disguise, Detective Inspector Soleil?"

She was neither at all shocked when she entered the secret room hidden at one of Fortuna's old and unused towers, nor at the sight of the Detective Inspector inhaling cup ramen like cocaine. As an undercover professor, she slicked her hair back but, her hair was of unruly layered hair, and her face donned huge glasses.

"Oh hello, Lady Isla Cecil," she said, setting down her ramen. "Have people informed you have an uncanny way of inviting yourself in places you weren't supposed to be?"

"That was a lovely lesson yesterday during Philosophy class." Isla helped herself on a chair in front of the older woman's desk. "I wonder if you had any ulterior motives with the debate."

DI Soleil rolled her eyes. "What brings you to be here in the flesh?"

"Do I need to spell it out for you, Godmother?" Isla asked, playing with the unfinished Rubik's cube she grabbed from the desk.

"What do you think of my secret base?" she spread her hands like a soaring eagle around.

Isla slammed the puzzle toy back to her desk, all sides were filled with its supposed color. "You are lucky enough to have fallen to the Headmistress' grace for providing you such hospitality. Nobody else except for her and me knows about your secret base."

"Not every one of the school board knows of this room or the fact that I'm using this." DI Soleil grinned before scowling. "Are you here to tell me how to do more of my job, Isla?"

"Oh trust me, after Parker's death I found myself backing out, if not for Henri giving me the pep talk of the century."

The Welsh woman snorted. "What do you have for me except for the things I already know?"

Isla drummed her fingers on the table. "First, I called the morgue to send me a photocopy of the results of the first deaths..." her godmother widened her eyes with a question. "No, I never said I was acquainted with you to get through. Dr. Allison is a family friend. I learned that Zac Kinsley's chums took a high degree of psychedelic drugs at the time of their death. They mixed mescaline, LSD, angel dust, and marijuana. So when these drugs set in, they were completely out of their minds."

"All the more to agree that they killed themselves," she said.

"Yes. But why would they kill themselves separately? If it was a mass suicide like the other homicide detectives thought, then why not die at the same time and in the same place? It's too much coincidence if it all were accidents. To just suddenly kill themselves like that in a separate place and a separate hour,"

DI Soleil formed her hands into a steeple. "Here we go again with your half-baked theory. I fail to see your point in Zac Kinsley's friends being in a classic case of Alice in Wonderland for you to assume they were a homicide case instead of suicide. Nevertheless, I'm intrigued. Very interesting, but not proof she's involved in the deaths. Isla, you're insinuating that since the victims were using psychedelic drugs, the killer used that to their advantage and simply committed the murder. And it so happened, that the killer is a girl named Alessandra Adams."