by Melody Raven
He pulled out his phone and she assumed he was calling whoever he needed to in order to get eyes on that video feed. While he talked, Bastian set a hand on her arm and led her a few steps away until they were out of earshot. “This is a bad idea.”
“He’s been here thirty seconds and he’s already helping. I feel like it’s a great idea.”
Bastian wasn’t swayed. “Claudia is going to be upset.”
Sam sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “He’s not going to let this go. Not now after people are dead. This way I can keep an eye on him.”
“Just your eyes?” asked Bastian pointedly.
Sam tightened her lips at the implication. “That’s not any of your business.”
“You’re my business right now.”
It was utterly disturbing to hear someone who looked like a mafia hit man saying she was his business. She chose to ignore it. It wasn’t exactly news that he was keeping an eye on her for Claudia. No reason to make a big deal out of it. “So what’s the plan? Are we going to start talking to people? Erasing minds?” Probably best if Derek wasn’t there for the mind-erasing part.
“Jennifer Barrett is dead. The other casualty was an elderly woman who lived next door.”
“The other victim,” said Derek as he joined them. “Casualties happen in wars. Victims happen in murder cases.”
“Do you think I’m not taking this seriously enough, Detective Pierce?”
“Just reminding you about the stakes.”
Sam stepped between them. “Rose Abbot thought the fires were directed at their family because of the historical significance of burning witches. Jennifer Barrett wasn’t subtle with her beliefs. That theory might have merit.”
“Is there any other connection between her and the Abbot family? They work together? Was she involved with any of the guys?”
“No and no,” said Sam.
Derek looked skeptically. “You can’t go off of assumptions. You never know what you’re going to find.”
“Fair point, but I’m fairly certain she lived a completely different life. The Abbots have an old and respected bloodline. The Barretts were barely a member of the families.”
“You know I don’t know what that means.”
“It means she was nearly human,” said Bastian. “She wasn’t invited to parties and doesn’t get to participate in all the fun things that go along with being more powerful than all the humans around you.”
Sam gave him a warning look, but Derek ignored the pointed remark. “Okay, so normal social interactions are unlikely. What about romantic?”
“John was known to sleep around. That’s worth asking,” said Bastian.
“No, it isn’t,” said Sam. “Jennifer was a lesbian.”
Both men turned to her. “I thought you didn’t know her that well,” said Derek.
“I didn’t. I only met her one time when she was over at my house, getting advice from my mother. She didn’t know how the families would react when she came out. Abigail said we’d been persecuted enough already and encouraged her to live her life how she wanted.”
Bastian looked skeptical. “You were in the room during the talk?”
Sam squared her jaw. “It was right after the fire. I was pretty indrawn and Abigail was worried about me. So she talked to me after Jennifer left and used her situation as a metaphor. I can double-check with my mother to see if she’s talked to Jennifer recently.”
“Three people in the Abbot family were targeted,” said Derek. “Albert, John, Nathan, and now Jennifer Barrett. Is this guy going by some directory?”
“It’s alphabetical,” agreed Bastian, “but there are a lot more people that have last names that start with A and B besides Abbot and Barrett.”
“It could be a coincidence,” said Sam.
Derek shook his head. “You know how I feel about coincidences and murder.”
Bastian glanced at his watch. “I’ve told the officer in charge that we’re city officials conducting our own investigation. Talk to some of the other tenants in the building. See if anyone noticed anything out of the ordinary.”
Great. More interrogating people when she had no idea what she was doing. “You’re going to be around?”
“No. I’m going with Detective Pierce to look over the footage he said they had.”
“Hey. I said I’d show it to Sam. I have no idea who the hell you are.”
Bastian shrugged and turned to Sam. “You want me to trust him, I need to work with him. Otherwise I’m going back to Claudia now.”
Sam wished there was something, anything, she could hold over Bastian, but she knew nothing about the guy. Through the course of the day, he’d told her nothing about his history, his love life or friendships. All she knew was that he was loyal to Claudia and was supposed to be helping her. “You’re going to tell Claudia anyway.”
“The tone I say it in makes a difference.”
“You say everything in the same tone,” she snapped, even though she knew he was right. If he told Claudia that Derek could be more of a help than a hindrance, that could make all the difference. Because whoever or whatever Bastian was, he was someone Claudia trusted her granddaughter with.
“Fine.” Sam sighed. “Give Derek and me a minute.”
Bastian didn’t show one sign he was happy with the small victory. Just walked away.
“Robot,” Sam muttered under her breath.
“You expect me to take the guard dog into the station with me?”
“He could get in if he wanted,” she pointed out. “Besides, if he likes you, you can have more access than you ever wanted. Isn’t that a good thing?”
“He wants to go with me because he’s trying to clear me as a suspect. He knows I had issues with your family and I have the means to do this.”
Sam patted him in the arm. “Well, that’s even better since I know you’re innocent.”
He didn’t appear comforted in the least. “How are you going to get home?”
“Garrett arranged for someone to bring my car back to my new place. I’ll take a cab the rest of the way. I’ll be fine and Bastian won’t hurt you.”
“I’m not calling him Bastian,” said Derek. “What’s his last name?”
“If I knew that, our lives would be easier. Go. Maybe you’ll even like the guy. He knows a lot more about this stuff than I do.”
“I don’t like this,” said Derek. “I don’t want you alone here. I don’t want you working with that guy.”
“He’s not wrong to want to test you out. He knows that we had a more than....” She searched for the right word. “Professional relationship.”
“How the hell would he know that?”
A rush of heat crept up her neck. “We weren’t exactly, um, quiet,” she whispered, unable to meet his eyes.
“Damn it.” Derek ran a hand over his eyes. “I never got to—I meant to, ugh, fuck me. I meant to apologize about that.”
Sam let out a small laugh but still couldn’t look up. “You really don’t have to. It wasn’t your fault.”
“No, it was. I never should have taken advantage like that.”
That got her to look up. “You think you took advantage of me?”
“All I’m saying is that the lines of consent were blurred. You deserved better than that.”
Her mouth opened and then she shut it as she tried to think of what to say. “Derek, we were at a party surrounded by my family and friends. Trust me. If I had wanted someone to stop you, you would’ve been stopped.”
“But I had you by the—”
“I liked it,” she whispered as she set a comforting hand on his arm. “I liked it and you did too. Don’t overthink it. Now go play nice with Bastian so he doesn’t tell my grandmother to kill you.”
Derek sighed in resignation. “Fine. I’ll go with him. But one shifty move and I’m going to shoot him and I have a feeling that will piss off your grandmother too.”
“Try to avoid the shooting.”
Bastian must’ve been growing impatient. “Can we go? Claudia is going to want progress.”
“Call me the second you see anything interesting on those tapes.” Sam thought better of that for a second thought. “Actually, just send me updates every fifteen minutes to let me know you’re both still alive.”
Bastian didn’t look amused. “Let me know if you have any questions.” He motioned to Derek that they should get going. “Oh, and good job today, Harris.”
Sam stared wordlessly for a few seconds. “Can never tell if he’s being sarcastic or not,” she muttered once he and Derek had left.
Derek checked his phone once more, but there were no notifications.
“Do I make you nervous, Detective Pierce?” asked the guard dog who he was reluctantly calling Bastian.
“You? No. You’re an angry guy who’s used to using intimidation to get what he wants. I get you.” And he did. Derek was practically a mirror image, though he liked to think he could turn on the charm when the situation necessitated it. He was thinking that this guy rarely used charm to get anything. “Leaving Sam alone back there, that makes me nervous.”
“You like her,” said Bastian. A statement, not a question.
“Sam helped me stop a very bad person from doing very bad things. Liking her after that was pretty natural.” Derek knew the guard dog was asking about more than a casual sort of like, but that was none of his damn business.
“Tommy Collins was an unfortunate incident.”
“He raped and murdered five women. If that’s an unfortunate incident, I’d hate to see what you consider a tragedy.” Derek pushed the computer chair he was sitting on back and rubbed at his temples. How Sam got through any time alone with this guy, Derek had no idea. “I should’ve gotten the access code by now.” He went back to the computer and reloaded his email.
Getting the guard dog into the station had been easy. It was late so there wasn’t a full house there, and because Derek was working a high-profile case, it wasn’t that strange for him to bring in strange people for questioning.
And when he’d requested access to the video feed at Albie’s Florist at ten thirty on a weeknight, the officer in charge had said yes easily, assuming it had something to do with the leg case.
So far the guard dog hadn’t asked him anything about where he’d been during the fires. Which made him wonder exactly how good he was at his job. If he didn’t think Derek was a suspect, he was a moron.
But if he wasn’t going to question Derek, Derek was going to question him. “How long have you worked with Claudia?” Derek didn’t look at him as he spoke. Not normally the best position for an interrogation, but in this case it was a good tactic. He couldn’t read the guard dog’s reactions like normal, but Bastian wasn’t a normal person. Derek doubted he’d show anything useful. Rather, what he said—or, more importantly, what he didn’t say—was what Derek was really looking for.
“I work with lots of people,” said the guard dog,
“And you think it’s okay to drag Sam into this?” The pause between the question and answer was longer than Derek expected. Interesting. That meant Bastian wasn’t sure about it.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about the families. Samantha Harris will be fine.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me then?” Derek turned around, trying to get something from the guy.
The guard dog’s brow furrowed and Derek knew he was at least considering telling him the truth. He kept quiet as he waited.
“You got an email,” said the guard dog.
Great. There went that interrogation. But Bastian had seemed at least on the verge of telling him something useful. Reason enough to be nice to the guy, no matter how wrong it felt.
“Looks like it’s the access code.” It took a few minutes to power up the software to look at the feed. Once he found the one that corresponded to the case number on the Albie job, he pulled it up. “Here we go.”
The guard dog winced. “I thought you’d have better quality than this.”
“The NYPD doesn’t work like the police departments on TV.” Derek started to play the tape on an accelerated speed. “What time did the fire start?”
“Fire department said it started around eight.”
Derek frowned. “Eight? When did they put it out?”
“Fire department was only a few blocks away, so they were there by eight fifteen. It was mostly extinguished by nine.”
“Hmm.”
“Think of something?”
“No. Just a lot of damage in an hour.” A lot of power for someone to have. He thought back to Sam’s confession in front of the ruins of her old house. She’d done that much harm and it wasn’t even on purpose. What could an angry and powerful witch do if they really wanted to cause damage?
“We’re getting close,” said Bastian.
The timer on the tape said seven p.m., so he slowed down the speed to four times normal. “Tell me if you see anyone familiar.”
A few minutes went by but nothing caught Derek’s attention, but then Bastian leaned forward. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Derek stopped the tape, but there was no one on the screen.
“Go back.”
Derek reversed the tape and studied the screen intently.
“There,” said Bastian.
Derek saw it too this time. A young woman was walking across the tape. She wasn’t holding a gas can or anything outright suspicious, but there was something... off about her. Where everyone else was with friends or on their phones, this girl was walking alone and looking straight ahead. But not the normal confident walk of a New Yorker. Her steps were staggered and— “She’s not wearing shoes.”
“She’s staring right at Jennifer Barrett’s apartment building too,” said Bastian.
Once there was a good image of the girl on the screen, Derek paused and enhanced the image three times. Any more and the pixels would make her features harder to see rather than easier. “I’ll print this out. Do you recognize her?”
“No. Sam might. She knows more people than I do.”
Derek got up out of the chair and pulled the printout from the printer. He looked down at the picture and frowned.
“You don’t think it’s her,” said the guard dog.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you don’t think it’s her.”
Derek rubbed at his tired eyes. “It’s not that. It’s just... I haven’t worked a lot of arson cases, but she doesn’t fit. Arsonists are usually male. As in nine out of ten times, they’re men. And arson is a crime of passion. Anger. These attacks are systematic and they’re too fast to be the work of a serial killer. Serial killers build up to crimes. They accelerate the kills over time because they keep chasing the original high. This is four fires in one week. It’s unprecedented.”
“It’s magic. There are lots of things that are unprecedented.”
“I think you’re more like the rest of us than you think.” Bastian didn’t reply as Derek went back to the computer. “Let’s see if we find anyone else suspicious. Text this picture to Sam to see if she recognizes it.” Derek didn’t ask, but made it an order. A test to see how the guard dog would react.
But Bastian didn’t protest and snapped a picture of the print out before sending it to Sam as Derek played the rest of the video. They didn’t see anyone else suspicious, but the girl showed up on camera once more. Even though the angle of the camera didn’t show the building, it was easy to tell when the fire started. One minute it was night and then there was a bright glow and people were running away.
And when the girl ran, she wasn’t just showing signs of fear. She looked at the building in outright horror.
“Sam knows her,” said Bastian. “Janet Montgomery.”
“Of course she does. Sam knows everyone.” It had served to be helpful, but it was starting to be concerning the number of killers she hung around with. “Does she happen to know an address?”
“She’s
going to get it from her mother. You up for a late-night visit or do you need your beauty sleep?”
Derek was going to have a full day tomorrow with his severed leg case, but he wasn’t going to let this go now. Not when he’d gotten them this far. He’d worked on barely any sleep before, so this wouldn’t be the first time. He’d just have to install his coffee IV tomorrow to get through the day with his senses still sharp. “I’m good.”
The guard dog patted him on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Derek glared at the guard dog, but he’d already removed the hand. “Are we meeting Sam there?”
“We’ll pick her up on the way. She’s still at the scene of the fire.”
“Maybe it would be best if she stays there.”
The guard dog narrowed his eyes. “You don’t think she can handle herself.”
“We’re going to the home of a woman who just killed two people, maybe with the use of her mind alone. Maybe it would be best if Sam is kept away from that.”
“Sam saved you not too long ago.”
“That was extenuating circumstances.”
The guard dog didn’t say anything, but he still looked skeptical. Though he always seemed to look skeptical.
“I have my gun to protect me. You have horrible people skills that keep everyone at a ten-foot radius. What does Sam have?”
“Claudia wouldn’t have her in the field if she didn’t think she could handle herself.”
“You have a lot of faith in a woman who wanted me dead a few months ago. I was in the hospital for two weeks.”
“She wanted you dead for a reason. She wants Sam in the field for a reason. Let’s go.”
The guard dog started to leave, but this time Derek stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Hey, if you want to trust Claudia with your life, that’s fine. But I’m not talking about your life. We’re talking about Sam. And if anything happens to her, I’m going to hold you personally responsible. Got that?”
The guard dog glanced down to Derek’s still holstered gun. “You don’t scare me.”
“Then obviously you don’t know me well enough.”