by Amir Lane
Gift of Secrets
Barrier Witch Book Two
Amir Lane
Contents
Also by Amir Lane
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
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About the Author
Gift of Secrets
Copyright © 2019 by Amir Lane
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real events, places, or characters is completely coincidental.
Cover by Covers by Combs
www.coversbycombs.com
Formatting by Keyminor Publishing Services
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Fairuz will stop at nothing to bring her partner home.
Despite orders to leave the Black Birches dryad gang alone, Detective Fairuz Arshad is determined to do whatever it takes to stop them. Tipped off by Interpol, she uncovers a Black Birches enforcer, Audra Jansens, in a Toronto prison who might have information she needs.
But time is running out. Jansons is awaiting transfer to be deported. Fairuz’s only chance is to go undercover in hopes of extracting leads that could bring Rowan home and bring down the Black Birches. Aboard the transfer van, things spin out of control when the transfer van is ambushed.
Barely escaping, Fairuz is on the run with the mysterious enforcer, who appears to be more than Interpol claims, and grappling with the realization that she and Jansons were set up. Someone on her team isn’t who they appear. Can she figure out who the mole is, or will Fairuz, Jansons, and Rowan pay for her failure with their lives?
Also by Amir Lane
Barrier Witch
Gift of Curses (#0)
Gift of Shadows (#1)
Gift of Ashes (#1.5)
Gift of Secrets (#2)
Gift of Darkness (#3)
Morrighan House Witches
Rise (#0)
Shadow Maker (#1)
Bad Omen (#2)
Panther Queen (#3)
To Katie.
For putting up with my bullshit and keeping me on track.
Chapter One
“Nine-one-one, what's the location of your emergency?”
The dispatcher’s soft, feminine voice was so even, I almost wondered if it was a computer. It wasn’t. I knew the dispatcher personally and that was her real voice.
It had taken me far longer than it should have to get a copy of the recording from the night I’d nearly died. The weeks of badgering I had to go through were especially ridiculous since the call had been made from my phone.
Somebody didn't want me to have this recording. I had some ideas as to who it could have been. Former Inspector Vance came to mind, even though I couldn't understand why he — or anybody — would want this kept from me. Unlike the video of Rowan’s ‘confession’ that had gotten around online, there was nothing incriminating in it. The difference was probably that Rowan had uploaded the video himself, while the recording was something that could be controlled. A paranoid part of me suspected that somebody higher than myself was trying to make my life difficult. If somebody was trying to keep this from me, it had to be for a reason. There had to be something in it that somebody didn’t want getting around. I’d listened to it half a dozen times, and I still wasn’t sure what that was.
“Raymore Park. This is Detective Rowan Oak, 12th Precinct. There's a fire. I've got an officer down.”
Rowan's raspy voice was barely audible. Even with the volume on my phone as loud as it would go and the earbud jammed into place, I almost couldn't hear him.
“We’re aware of the fire. Fire services are in route. What are the extent of your injuries, Detective Oak? Should I send an ambulance?”
“Not me. Detective Arshad. Fairuz Arshad.”
He coughed and gasped. I squeezed my eyes shut as if it would stop me from picturing the last time I'd seen him in person — bloody and half-dead with a gaping wound in his chest — or the moment Rutherford Bromley had stabbed him through the heart.
“So two officers down.”
“No, just— Just one.”
“But—”
“Please. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
Rowan’s gasps for breath contradicted him. I had to strain to hear him over the roaring of the fire behind him. I could still smell the smoke and feel the heat on my arms. My grip on the steering wheel of my car tightened until my knuckles went white.
Why was I making myself listen to this again? There was nothing anything in it that would help me find him. There was nothing hiding in his half-sobbed gasps but an excuse for me to fixate. All I was doing was making myself relive that night, but I didn't know what else to do. Rowan has been missing for three months and I was no closer to finding him or figuring out how to bring down the Black Birches. This was all I had. There had to be something in it. If there wasn't…
If there wasn't, I didn't know what else to do. If there wasn’t, I would go crazy.
“Detective?” the dispatcher said, pulling me out of my own mind.
I looked around for anybody who might have been trying to catch my attention. The parking lot was full of cars, but there were no people. The voice was still coming from my earbud. For the brief half-second before she spoke, I’d forgotten I was listening to a recording.
Sirens began to wail in the background, either from fire trucks or ambulances.
“She's been stabbed. Right shoulder. Lots of— of scratches. Sm-smoke inhalation, probably.”
“What about you, Detective?”
“I'm putting pressure on the wound, but I can't— I can't—”
“Detective?”
Rowan muttered something I couldn't make out. There was a good chance it wasn't even English. Rowan's first language was Belarusian. I’d never heard him speak it much. The background noise cut out a moment later.
“Detective? Detective!”
Rowan didn't answer. The line was dead.
I was still piecing together what happened after that. All I knew was that a second call had been placed Rowan’s girlfriend, Kseniya Ivanova, thirty-four seconds after the 9-1-1 call ended to. It had lasted twenty-seven seconds. That was the last anybody heard of either of them until the video of Rowan confessing to burying information about the series of murders last winter had surfaced, and it was the last anybody heard of them since. I had to believe they were both still alive, even if I had no proof either way.
The longer I sat in my car, the more I found myself dreading work. The minutes ticked by at the top of my cell phone screen until I was officially late.
It was getting harder and harder to go through the motions.
Finally, I tucked my phone into the back pocket of my dove grey slacks. They were the best work pants I’d ever found. They long enough for my legs, and still had pockets big enough to fit my phone, keys, and handcuffs. I’d bought two pairs in every colour they had.
I got out of my car and started across the parking lot, locking the doors behind me. I made my way up to the second floor of the 12th district precinct, making small ta
lk to anyone who stopped me. The subtle procrastination added another four minutes to my trip upstairs. Like every day since Rowan disappeared, I held my breath as I rounded the corner to Special Crimes’ section of the floor until I saw that his desk was still empty. I lived in fear of the day someone would fill that spot. It would feel like everyone had given up on him. Everyone already had, but I had to pretend.
“I almost killed my best friend.”
Rowan’s words came back to me and made me shudder.
I swallowed and forced myself to make the right turn. The desk was still empty. I exhaled through my mouth in relief.
Both desks parallel to mine and Rowan’s were equally empty. Kieron Harper and Indira Krishnamurthy-King usually came in closer to 8:30. It had never been a problem before; Rowan had also been an early riser like me. These days, it was just me and Staff Sergeant Sabine Beaupré here this early.
I plugged my earbuds into my personal phone, a habit I'd only picked up recently to drown out the silence, and hit the power button on my desktop tower. The fans whirled to life with loud groans that drowned out the Abdel Halim song playing. Both my monitors turned on to greet me with twin messages of Updating Windows.
“Are you kidding me?” I groaned.
Normally, I waited for Kieron to make coffee but I wasn't in the mood to spin around in my chair doing nothing. I had to keep busy. Otherwise, I'd end up going down a road I didn't want to, a road that suggested I maybe did have a touch of survivor’s guilt like the therapist I’d been forced to see had said. I disagreed. It wasn't survivor’s guilt, because all of us had survived. It was nothing but regular, garden-variety trauma. Nothing to worry about.
Hot mug of coffee in hand, I settled back in my creaky chair.
28% Complete, my screen told me.
I was going to die in this chair in the time it would take to load this update. If I shot my computer, would they give me a newer, faster one? Something that at least ran Windows 7? Anything was better than Windows Vista. Organized Crime had Windows 10 and it looked so much better than Vista, glitches and all. It had to be better than the absolute, utter agony of watching the 28 turn to 29. I imagined standing, grabbing my gun from my hip holster opposite the side where I kept my purse, and emptying the magazine into the tower. That felt like a bad idea. I had kickboxing after work. I could blow some steam then, even if I had to modify the workouts for my injured shoulder. I could keep it together for eight hours. All I had to get through was eight hours.
I usually kept printouts of current cases to mark up and reference quickly, but I'd been a scattered mess since I'd returned to work three months ago, though I thought I was doing a pretty good enough job at hiding it. The stack of papers littering my desk were a disaster to sort through. I didn’t even know where to start looking. It was almost a relief when a uniformed officer interrupted me.
“Detective Arshad?” she said, a little uncertainly, as if she wasn't sure that was me.
I smiled at her, glad for the distraction. She was young, mid-twenties, with blue-grey scales that covered her body. Her bald scalp glimmered in the fluorescent light. Her name tag said Shepherd. I might have worked with her husband back in my Homicide days. There had been a siren in my old precinct named Shepherd. I remembered him mentioning his wife was applying to the police academy. She looked about the right age.
Had I really been with Special Crimes for only just over a year?
The man behind her was tall. I was tall, at a few inches shy of 6 feet, but I could tell just by looking at him that he was at least a head taller than me. His blue polo shirt barely overlapped his jeans. The height alone gave him away as a dryad, and the dark, coarse bark over his skin confirmed it. I didn't know enough about trees to say what kind he was, but it definitely wasn't birch.
“This is RCMP Superintendent Gilbert Udalets,” Shepherd said.
I stood upright immediately, reacting to the title before I processed anything else, even as he said, “Retired Superintendent,” in a gravelly voice. It was only then that his name caught up to me. Udalets. My heart rate picked up, and not just from standing so suddenly. I struggled to keep my expression even as I reached out to take the hand he offered. In his other hand was a smooth, wooden box about half the size of a shoe box.
“It’s an honour to finally meet you, Superintendent Udalets,” I said.
The bark of his palm scraped mine. His grip was firm, but not quite painful.
“Retired Superintendent,” he repeated. He gave Shepherd a sideways glance, and she excused herself. He took his hand back and used it to grip the box protectively. “The honour is mine, Detective. My son — Rowan — spoke very highly of you. I— Is there somewhere more… private we can talk?”
I nodded a little numbly. Never mind that Rowan apparently spoke highly of me, or that he even spoke of me at all. This was Rowan's father. Not the one who'd hypothetically raised him for the first half of his life, but the one who'd saved and taken care of him. I'd tried contacting him when Rowan had first disappeared but he hadn't returned any of my calls or emails. I certainly wasn't expecting him to show up here. When I glanced back, I caught sight of Sabine on the phone between the blinds. There was no sense interrupting her to tell her where I was going, especially when I wasn't even leaving the building.
“There's a break room down the hall,” I said.
We were halfway there when I realized my coffee was still sitting on my desk. I didn't need the caffeine anymore. I was plenty awake now.
The break room was empty, since most people preferred to use the larger one downstairs with the comfortable couches and the fancy espresso machine. Superintendent Udalets declined my offer of coffee or water with a shake of his hand and sat in one of the creaky chairs. The coffee pot was still warm and the smell filled the small room. I sat across him and waited for him to speak. He stared at the box, at the tree carved beautifully into the lid. It matched the tree Rowan had tattooed onto his forearms, without the skulls. My bet was that it was an oak tree.
The silence stretched on, indicated by the ticking of the analog clock on the wall above the closed door. Superintendent Udalets’ hands trembled. I took the opportunity to look him over.
He didn't look much like Rowan. There was no reason for him to; Rowan was adopted and was rumoured to have had some plastic surgery done. Superintendent Udalets was both taller and broader than Rowan, certainly looking like an oak. His short, white hair was interrupted with spots of auburn. Blue bloodshot eyes looked up at me for only a moment before he looked down again.
“I'm sorry I never returned your calls, Detective.”
“Please, call me Fairuz.”
He gave a small nod of his head, his eyes still on the box. His wrinkled clothes hung a little loosely from his body, as though he’d lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time.
“Of course. Fairuz. You know that Rowan didn't say the things they're saying he did. Not willingly.”
I nodded.
“I know.”
“Don't get me wrong, he wasn't perfect. Far from it. He was hurt and angry. Didn't trust much of anyone. He was a venerable nightmare to raise.” He gave a dry but affectionate laugh. “Sixteen years old, didn't speak two words of English appropriate for polite company. He took a bite out of the doctor who tried to examine him,” he said with another fond chuckle.
I couldn't help but smile. I didn't know what ‘venerable’ meant, but I could imagine it hadn't been easy. Rowan wasn't easy to get along with now.
“Why did you do it?” I asked.
I wasn’t sure if it was the right question to ask, but something about his tone made me ask it anyway. He obviously wanted to talk about Rowan. Why else would he be here?
Superintendent Udalets shifted to pull his wallet from his back pocket and handed me something from inside it. A photograph of Rowan in his police uniform. Judging by how much younger Rowan looked, it could have been from his graduation from the Police Academy. He didn't look quite like the Row
an I knew. Whether that was from time, hormones, or plastic surgery, I couldn't say. What I could say was that he looked happy.
“This is the only picture he let me have of him,” Superintendent Udalets said, his voice trembling. “Made him nervous. Having his picture taken.”
I'd noticed that, too, but I'd never thought anything about it. I handed the photograph back. Superintendent Udalets kept it in his hand, holding it over the box.
“All I have is this, and that video going around. Could you imagine seeing your son all bloody and hurt and scared? And having everyone say he's bad? You couldn't. Seeing that…” Superintendent Udalets let out a shaky breath. “He looked like that when I found him. Scared and trying to pretend like he wasn't. He put himself between us and the girls to protect them.”
He rubbed his mouth. When he looked at me again, his eyes were watering. The shadows around them were dark and heavy. I doubted they were just from the long flight from Alberta and accompanying time zone change.
“They would have sent him back to where he came from, or put him in a group home or juvie. I thought to myself, ‘That kid is going to be dead in a ditch or turning tricks to survive if I don't do something.’ I couldn't save them all, but I—”
I covered his hand with both of mine. My throat itched and my eyes stung. Superintendent Udalets took my hands and placed them on the box, then pushed it toward me, clearing his throat. I wiped my eyes with my fingertips, careful of smudging my dark purple eyeliner.