“The funky doctor’s back?” Young smiled. “I like her.”
Corey tapped the photos. “It says, ‘keep silent.’”
Young whistled. “Damn. Guess the mouthful of wasps makes even more sense now, right?”
“Young! Proctor! You here?” The voice of Mazie Dupuis, the department’s secretary, carried over the cubicle wall.
Young rolled his chair to the door of their cubicle and had to dodge a mail delivery cart that almost collided with his chair. “We’re here, Mazie. What’s up?”
“You wanna see this. On the TV. Come quick.” Mazie’d been with the department almost as long as the captain. When she called, you went.
Corey and Young hurried to the conference room. Several other investigators crowded in behind them as all eyes moved to the hologram newscast projected on the wall.
“What is it?” Young asked.
“Shhhhh!” Mazie waved her hands at the noise. “Hush up, all you! It’s coming back on.”
The commercial ended and the IMTV 4 News graphics filled the screen, followed by a female news reporter in a red blouse sitting at the anchor desk. “And we’re back with breaking news out of Boston. Independent Mage News 4 Reporter Mike Flocka is on the scene with exclusive coverage. Mike?”
The view changed and the screen filled with a male news reporter standing in front of a chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire and a thick growth of biting ruby vines. The words ‘Attempted Murder at Maldrake Prison’ appeared on the bottom of the screen. “Thanks Katie. I’m standing outside the gates to the PIO’s Maldrake Correctional Facility here in Boston where I am told that a guard has been taken into custody. My sources inside tell me that the guard, one Richard Olson, had to be tackled by three of his fellow prison guards after allegedly being caught in the act of strangling an inmate. The inmate was none other than Marcus Wingate, one of the few mundane prisoners here and the so-called “Sex Trade Pirate.” Wingate was arrested in connection with the notorious Oasis Group, the organized crime ring whose focus is on dark magic, drugs, and the sex trade in the mundane realm.”
Murmurs rippled through the conference room. Corey could feel her coworker’s eyes on her. She stared at the screen.
“Viewers may recall the events from almost six months ago when the mundane Marcus Wingate was apprehended after kidnapping three local women, two students from Rathmoore Academy and the third an investigator with the Magical Crimes Unit. One of the students was killed. You may be surprised to learn that this isn’t the first time someone has tried to take Wingate’s life. Our sources inside Maldrake Prison tell me that Wingate has been a target since day one and the PIO has been holding him in a maximum security wing to keep him alive and until he can be brought to trial.”
The screen split and half showed the anchor in the studio, the other half still on the reporter at the scene. “Mike, can you tell us what you know about the guard who allegedly attacked Wingate?” the anchor asked.
The reporter nodded as he touched his earpiece and consulted his notes. “Yes, Katie. His name is Richard Olson. He goes by Richie…”
Adrenalin rang through Corey’s body. “Hey partner?” she whispered.
Young glanced at Corey.
“What was Cullen’s wife’s name again?” she asked.
He thought for a second, confused. “Della Cullen?” Young’s eyes flashed as the memory clicked into place. “Della Olson Cullen!”
“Coincidence?” Corey grabbed the door handle and pulled open the conference room door.
Young stepped out into the hallway. “No such thing.”
Corey picked up a phone from the nearest desk, pressing the speed dial for dispatch. “Hi Carla. Corey Proctor. I need to send a team up to an address in Grand View Estates. A private house, yeah.” She gave the dispatcher the address from her notepad. “Right. I’m headed there now. Have them detain Mrs. Della Cullen until I get there. Great. Thanks Carla.”
Young stood at his desk, typing on his keyboard while the phone hovered next to his ear. He cupped his hand over the receiver as Corey grabbed her keys. “I’m on with Maldrake Prison. I’ll find out what I can about Richie Olson.”
“Okay. Call me when you know something. I’ll go get Mrs. Cullen.” Corey could kick herself for missing this. Not that she could have known something was going to happen to Wingate in the prison, but she knew something was off with Della Cullen from the moment they saw her this morning. The woman had been crying for quite a while when they rang her bell, judging by the look of her face. And that knitting… They should have pressed her on it, made her give a more thorough explanation besides… what had she claimed was the reason? Family.
“Damn.”
Corey gripped the wheel of her Toyota 4Runner as she raced north on the two-lane, her thoughts flying with the traffic. What did an Elite Blue Guard’s death on Witch Island have to do with the attempt on Wingate’s life in Maldrake Prison? And what did Della Cullen know about it?
She ran through what she knew so far, frustrated with the lack of information. She knew some of the people involved: The Oasis Group, Wingate, Richie Olson, and now, somehow, their dead guy from this morning, Retired Elite Blue Guard, Gregory Cullen. It wasn’t a huge leap to understand their motive: The Oasis Group wanted to shut Wingate up. For good. With Wingate dead, their case falls apart and with it any hope the PIO had to break open the organized crime ring.
Corey had spent countless hours talking to the PIO over the past six months. She’d been assigned to work with Special Agent Fox from the start. When Corey asked to be brought up to speed on their investigation, Agent Fox could only share a hypothetical org chart for the crime ring with a lot of blanks and question marks next to the names they did have.
“The Oasis Group is tight as a drum,” Agent Fox had said. “We haven’t been able to get anything from them. We had one guy who we turned years ago. He gave us the names of a few of The Oasis Group’s lead guys, explained how they sought girls with exceptional magical powers and then lured them in and stole their magic.”
“What for? What do they do with the magic?”
“I don’t know. But once they do that, they get them hooked on drugs before they move them into the trade. The money they make from the sex trade funds their operation. But we haven’t figure out yet who the head guy is and what he wants.” She flipped through her file, pulled out another photo, a crime scene shot, taken in a boat yard somewhere. “Our source got close to the top. He was sure he was going to figure out what was going on. But then we lost contact. Found him weeks later, rotting in a shipping container with his tongue cut out.”
It made sense that they’d go after Wingate. They’d tried once before, so it wasn’t really a surprise to see they would try again, especially now that the trial was upon them.
But how did Greg Cullen fit into this? And what about Richie Olson? She pressed the gas pedal, pushing the Toyota faster, crossing the double yellow line to pass slower cars on the two-lane highway.
Chapter Twenty-Four
An MCU apprehension team sat in a patch of shade in Della Cullen’s driveway. Corey parked next to them and hopped out of her truck.
The patrol officer, a new guy Corey hadn’t met before, tipped his chin at Corey as she approached. “Ain’t nobody home.” He leaned against his car as if he had all day to sit and wait.
Corey stopped short, glaring at the guy. “And you didn’t think to radio that in? Save me the drive up here?” Corey balled her hands into fists.
The officer shrugged. “Sorry, they just said to wait for you.” He pushed himself off his car and reached to open the car door.
What a jerk. Corey swore. “I need you to stay here. If the wife returns, I want her brought in.” Corey pulled out her cell and dialed Young.
The cop’s mouth hung open. “Aw, come on. Really? How long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“You serious?”
Young’s voice sounded through the phone. “Yo.”
“Hey. We need an alert put out on Della Cullen.” She hopped back in her Toyota and turned the key.
“She split?” Young asked.
“Well, she’s not here. And if nothing else the timing makes me itchy, you know?”
“Got it.”
“Thanks partner. Make sure they know we just want to talk to her. We have no idea what’s going on yet, so she’s just a person of interest.”
“Well, maybe we rethink that. I just got off the phone with my guy at Maldrake.”
“You have a guy at Maldrake?” Corey asked.
“Hey. I got a lot of guys in a lot of places. Deal with it.”
She could hear his smile through the phone. It calmed her instantly. “And?”
“Apparently, Richie Olson is one shady dude. He brings contraband and drugs in, deals ‘em to the inmates.”
“And they just let that happen? What the hell is going on over there?”
“My guy says the brass can’t do anything. Nobody likes it but seems the Olson family is connected. They got family higher up the pole. Uncle is some super rich conservationist. Pretty thick in PIO politics. Keeps Richie from losing his gig at the jail.”
Corey sighed. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. Had my guy check Richie’s file. His emergency contact is our friend Della Cullen. She’s his sister.”
“All right. I’m on my way back.”
Corey tapped the screen to end the call and tossed her phone onto the leather passenger seat. Nothing made sense. So far, everything with this case felt like a pile of loose ends. She gunned the engine, letting the tires squeal as she tore away from the Cullen house. She opened the windows of her truck and blasted the radio. The music drowned out all thoughts of lazy cops, Wingate, the trial, and the mess all of this made in the lives of the people it touched.
Back at the station, Corey met Young walking back in the door from the parking lot.
Young slowed to let Corey catch up. “What? You stop taking my calls?”
Corey cringed. Maybe the stereo blaring wasn’t the best move. “Sorry. I needed a brain break.”
“Great. You back now? Because I got things going on here.” Young talked while they walked back to their cubicle. “We got Della Cullen. Found her at the Airport with a one-way ticket to California that she bought this morning, right after you and I left her house.”
“Really? That’s interesting.”
“Yeah, guess she didn’t want to risk using a travel portal since we could have tracked her real time.”
“Not the behavior of the innocent. And the other thing?”
Young held up a jump drive. “The owner of the bar next to the kayak shop just dropped this off. She had cameras outside her place so I asked her to check the security video from last night. She says there’s something we gotta see on here.”
“What is it?”
Young sat in his chair and spun to face his computer. “No idea. Let’s find out.”
Young placed the drive into the computer’s port and cued up the video. The screen filled with the color image of the view behind the bar. The time stamp said 1:00 AM. The camera was attached to the building, and the view took in the entire alley space behind the bar. The area consisted of a dumpster, several stacks of empty cardboard, and a picnic table where a man in a white apron sat smoking. A spotlight directly under the camera lit the space well enough to tell that the smoking person was not Greg Cullen.
They watched the man finish his cigarette, flick it into the shrubs lining the fence at the back of the yard, and walk back toward the camera. He pulled the door open and bright light, presumably from the kitchen, spilled into the yard.
Two minutes later, the door opened again, and a short man wearing a white suit coat stepped out, his face blurred in the recording for some reason, and his bald head shining in the spotlight. He was followed by a large, muscular man in a tight-fitting gray v-neck t-shirt and dark jeans. Greg Cullen. He had a beer bottle in his hand.
“Ding ding ding. We have a winner,” Young said.
Corey leaned on the back of Young’s chair. “Too bad there’s no sound. I wish I knew what they were saying.”
On the screen, the two men faced each other. Cullen towered over the man in the white jacket, though they both seemed relaxed. Just two guys having a casual chat, Cullen sipping his beer. There was nothing at all menacing about it.
The man in white crossed his arms in front of his chest. He appeared to be listening to Cullen. Cullen moved his arms a lot while he spoke. His biceps bunched as he bent his arms. He was clearly growing more agitated as he went on.
The man in white said something. He uncrossed his arms and slipped his hands into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out something that glinted in the light. He shook his head, shrugged once. He seemed smug.
Whatever he had said seemed to anger Cullen, who stepped forward and got in the smaller man’s face. Cullen poked a finger at the man’s chest, once, twice, leaving it there as he spoke as if he were counting off demands, making threats.
The man in white moved his hands up to his face and then dropped them to his side. He’d placed a mask over his face. A golden mask with twisted horns.
Corey’s knees buckled. “Oh my god.”
“Partner?” Young’s voice was a million miles away.
Corey stared at the screen. Cullen stepped back and spoke again. His chin jutted toward the smaller man. He placed his hands on his hips.
The man in the white coat lifted his hands slowly from his pockets and let them hang straight at his sides. Then he shrugged and flicked his right wrist and something shiny fell into his hand from inside his coat.
Young leaned in to the screen. “Wait a second. I’m going back. What was that?” Young backed up the video and hit play again. On the video, the man shrugged again and something dropped through his sleeve and into his hand.
Young looked up at Corey. “That’s like James Bond, man.”
Corey wasn’t listening. She was stuck on the sight of the man in the mask. The golden mask. The mask with horns that plagued her nightmares since she was a child. This wasn’t happening.
The man in white reached up and pointed his right hand at Cullen. Then a puff of powder or smoke appeared in the smaller man’s hand.
Cullen took a step back, looking down at his chest. He turned toward the light—toward the camera. A pair of tiny darts poked out of his chest, the pink stabilizer feathers on the backs appearing like a couple of festive flowers pinned to his shirt. Cullen’s beer bottle landed in the dirt. He reached for the darts, his hand swatting at them, missing clumsily. Then he swatted again, made contact, and pulled one of them out.
Cullen brought the dart up to his face, as if he couldn’t make it out clearly. Then his arm dropped, and the dart fell to the ground.
Young sat back. “Jesus, what the hell is in that thing? He’s already losing control of his body.”
Corey’s skin prickled with fear, her mind exploding with the memory of the time when she had seen that mask first-hand. Then to the time when she’d experienced darts like those. And in the time it took for her to bend over to take the darts out, she had been overcome by the effects of whatever drug had been injected into her bloodstream.
Corey’s vision tunneled.
Suddenly she was back on that boat, rocking and crawling across the deck, fighting to stay awake, stay alive. Then Wingate arrived…
Corey grabbed the edge of the tall filing cabinet behind Young and took a deep breath. Get a grip. Get a grip. You are not in danger.
She pinched the skin on her wrist until the pain made her eyes water. Sweat broke out along her hairline. I am safe. I am not in danger.
On the screen, Cullen had fallen to his knees. The man in white, still wearing the mask, stood in place, watching as the former Elite Blue Guard was reduced to a flailing mess. Unable to use his legs, Cullen used his arms to drag himself away in a lopsided commando crawl, his flip-flops sliding of
f his feet in the process. Corey and Young watched as Cullen moved slowly out of the camera’s view.
The man in white stood still, watching Cullen. He lit a cigarette, and took a long drag, and another, before stubbing it out in the dirt. He pulled something flat from his pocket—a wallet or something, picked up the dart Cullen had dropped, and tucked it into the case. He snapped it shut and slid it into the inside pocket of his sport coat. Then he moved his hands in front of his chest, as if doing some kind of slow tai chi, and green and gold swirls of light burst from his fingers. His hands were engulfed by the light, which spun and swirled like… like insects. Then he walked in the same direction toward Cullen, and out of the camera’s view.
“Well, we know what he did next, right?” Young shuddered. “Why giant hornets, man? And why carve a message it into the face? I mean, seriously?”
“He was alive for that part,” Corey whispered.
Young shivered. “Damn. And the dude was totally calm. Did you see that? He didn’t flinch. Even when Cullen was all up in his face.”
Corey wasn’t listening. She was lost in her past. The memories of the man with the golden horned mask filling her vision. It was him. He was the one. He was the one Darby Paul worked for. He was the evil behind her trauma. What the hell did it mean that he was back?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Della Cullen was furious.
Corey watched through the one-way mirror glass as Greg Cullen’s wife was escorted into the Interview Room.
“This is unbelievable. I will not be treated like a criminal!” She huffed as the female officer directed her to sit, explaining to her that the inspectors would be right with her.
She wore black Capri pants, rattan high-heeled sandals, and a sandy-colored tunic top with russet beading that draped over her small frame as if positioned for a magazine photo shoot. Her auburn hair hung in loose ringlets over her shoulder. She dropped into the chair and laid her hands flat on the table, taking a deep breath and blowing it out as if composing herself.
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