She straightened and looked at herself in the mirror. Green eyes that looked far too old to belong to her stared back. Her shoulder-length red hair was damp with sweat and she ducked her head under the faucet, letting the cold water wash away the last clinging tendrils of the nightmare memory.
A few minutes later she toweled her hair dry and walked back into her bedroom, where she looked at the clock. It was almost four in the morning. She knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, and that even if she could, she wouldn’t like what she saw. She stripped her bed, dumped the sheets in the washing machine, and then got ready for work.
Black pants went on first. A gray button-up shirt suited her mood. A small Swiss Army knife she’d carried with her since her first day on the job and her detective’s shield went into a pocket. She hesitated only a moment before clipping her holster onto her belt and sliding her gun inside it.
After leaving her house, Samantha drove downtown, parked, and headed to her favorite coffee shop. The city was just beginning to wake up and she savored the sights and sounds. Every city had its own character and Boston was no exception. The city that had witnessed so many historic events had not forgotten its past even as it pushed boldly forward into the future. It felt old and young all at once.
Just like me.
A jogger passed her, throwing an admiring glance her way. She ignored him. Samantha was twenty-eight but often felt much, much older. With her red hair and green eyes betraying her Irish heritage, a gift from the father she had never known, she caught the eyes of a lot of guys her age. It was admiration she found hard to reciprocate because they all seemed so very young and so very, very naive.
She walked into Jake’s Eats and settled into her usual booth. Claudia, the motherly brunette waitress who never forgot a customer, appeared with a glass of orange juice in her hand.
“Rough night, huh?”
Samantha smiled at her. “You could say that.”
“You’re in luck. We’ve got corned beef hash this morning.”
“Sounds like a winner.”
Claudia smiled, patted her on the shoulder, and headed back toward the kitchen. Samantha wrapped her hand around the glass of orange juice, feeling the cold of it against her fingers, inhaling the smells coming from the kitchen, feeling the squishiness of the red vinyl upholstery, and remembering, as always, her first visit to the restaurant.
She had been twelve and a police officer had brought her. It had seemed like a haven from the horrors of her childhood, and the bloodbath she had just witnessed. It was where she came whenever she needed to remember that the past was the past. When I need to feel safe, she thought, briefly closing her eyes.
She heard the chimes on the door and opened her eyes to see a man a few years older than she was, with short black hair, a square jaw, and a brown trench coat, and he was heading her way with a determined stride.
“Morning, Ed,” she said in greeting as he slid across from her into the booth.
“Samantha. I knew I’d find you here.”
“Did you call the house?”
“Yeah, and, surprise, you weren’t there.”
“You could have called my cell,” she said.
He rolled his eyes at her. “I could have, if you ever had it on.”
She resisted the urge to check, but knew he was probably right. Her cell phone spent more time off than it did on. She told people she was forgetful, but deep down she knew that she really just didn’t want to talk to anyone.
“I think you must be the worst partner I’ve ever had,” he grouched.
She smiled. “I’m the best partner you’ve ever had and you know it.”
He gave her a defiant look and then grabbed her orange juice. “Whatever,” he said as he took a swig. She had long before learned not to let his occasional lack of boundaries faze her. He knew she kept secrets from him, but he didn’t push. In exchange, she didn’t gripe when he mooched her food. It was a tenuous truce at best, but for two years it had worked well for both of them.
Ed was her second partner. Making detective so young hadn’t made her popular, and everyone knew that her family was close to the captain. Her first partner had spent more time griping about her age than helping her learn the ropes. It hadn’t mattered to him that she had a degree in criminal science, had worked her tail off, stepping up and taking responsibility wherever she could, and had earned high praise from her supervisors. The whole partnership had been a disaster. After three months Captain Roberts had assigned Ed to be her partner. Fortunately Ed had been willing to overlook her inexperience, and she had learned a lot from him. But she prided herself on also having taught him a thing or two.
“Why are you here, Ed?” she asked as she retrieved her orange juice.
“Why else? We’ve got a body—college coed turned up dead in her apartment off campus.”
“We’re not on duty for another couple of hours.”
“Yeah, but there’s some local color involved.”
Claudia reappeared with the promised corned beef hash. Samantha shoveled several forkfuls into her mouth as Ed grabbed a piece of her sourdough toast and headed for the door. She put money down on the table and followed him outside to his car. They drove for ten minutes in silence before parking outside an apartment complex.
“Local color” was what the other detectives called it when there was anything weird about a call. As soon as they walked inside the apartment, Samantha saw why the phrase had been applied.
A girl was standing, talking to a uniformed officer. Her hair was dyed an unnatural black, and she was dressed like a Goth, in a black velvet dress, black boots, and fishnet tights. Nearby, the crime scene photographer was taking pictures of the body of a young woman dressed in white who had a bloody pentagram drawn on her forehead.
When Samantha and Ed approached, the uniformed officer explained that the live girl was Katie Horn, that she lived there and had discovered the body. The dead girl was Camille. He then moved away.
Samantha turned to Katie and studied her, taking in everything from the pentagram necklace to the crystal ring on her finger. Wiccan?
“What’s with the getup?” Ed asked.
“I’m a witch,” the girl said defiantly.
Wannabe.
Samantha suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. “When is your coven meeting?”
“I don’t have one. I’m a solitary practitioner.”
“What you are is full of crap,” Ed said. “You see, my partner here, she has witch-dar. If you were a witch, I would have known it ten minutes ago.”
Samantha sighed and contemplated kicking him, but he continued. “Friend of yours?” he asked, indicating the body.
“My roommate.”
“You don’t seem too shook up,” he noted.
The girl shrugged. “Didn’t know her until three weeks ago. I put an ad in the campus paper, and she was the only one who answered who wasn’t a freak.”
“Good one,” Ed said, as if she had just made a joke.
“Was she observant?” Samantha questioned.
“Huh?” Katie asked, a confused look on her face.
“Did she practice? Was she Wiccan? Pagan?” Samantha clarified.
“No, nothing like that. She was like Mormon or something.”
“And she didn’t have a problem with you being a . . . witch?” Ed asked, choking on the word.
“No, some people have, like, religious tolerance, you know,” Katie said, glaring at Ed.
“Right.” He snorted.
“Did she have a boyfriend?” Samantha interrupted.
“Yeah, Brad, a real frat brat,” Katie said, wrinkling her nose. “They just started going out.”
“Did she have any enemies?” Ed asked.
Katie shook her head. “She wasn’t interesting enough to have enemies.”
Samantha’s eyes swept the room. They weren’t going to get anything useful out of Katie. The way she stood, all defiant and rebellious pos
turing, was mostly a front, but if she knew something more, she had no plans to spill it.
Ed continued to question Katie while Samantha inspected the environment for anything of interest. Aside from the bloody pentagram on Camille’s forehead, there didn’t seem to be any blood on the body or anywhere else in the room.
She walked into Katie’s room, which had vampire- themed posters on the walls. Stacks of vampire and witch books cluttered her desk and nightstand. A handful of mythology and comparative lit textbooks teetered precariously on the edge of her desk.
A pentagram had been marked on the floor underneath and around her bed. Samantha raised an eyebrow and wondered if the guys Katie brought home found it as dark and sexy as Katie clearly did.
From there she moved to Camille’s room. By contrast, this room was all delicate pastels. A stuffed bear sat lonely in the middle of the neatly made bed. Posters of horses and kittens decorated the walls. If Camille really was Mormon, then Samantha was surprised that she would have tolerated a roommate like Katie. Her parents would no doubt have been even less thrilled.
“Why were you here, Camille?” she whispered to the room. She closed her eyes and could almost feel the younger woman’s spirit, her essence.
She opened her eyes and shook herself hard. She moved over to Camille’s desk and went through the drawers, finding only school supplies. The textbooks on the desk were neatly stacked and revealed that Camille had been taking biology, chemistry, and French literature.
After gathering all the names and information they could, an hour later they left the scene. Once in Ed’s car, Samantha’s irritation with him returned. “I don’t like it when you do that.”
“Get sarcastic with the suspects? You know I can’t help myself.”
“Not that.”
“What, say you have witch-dar?”
“Yes.”
“But you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Okay, was she a witch?”
“No!”
“Was she a Wiccan?”
“I seriously doubt it.”
“I don’t know. I think she might have been—after all, there were all those candles around,” he said.
She couldn’t tell whether he was serious or he was baiting her. “You saw that apartment. There was no place she could cast a proper circle, not easily.”
“Maybe she worships outside.”
“In the dirt and the mud? Hardly.”
“What makes you say that?” he asked.
“Let’s just say her boots weren’t made for walking.”
“Okay, but the candles . . .”
“All black. She’s a Goth. You know, darkness, death, tragedy. Wiccans celebrate the whole cycle—birth, life, death. Not just one aspect. Besides, you can’t do candle magic with all black candles.”
“Witch-dar,” he said smugly.
Samantha turned to stare out the window, annoyed that she’d walked into it. She fingered her cross and tried not to think about how her need to touch it to make herself feel better was not much different from ceremonial magic.
“Sorry,” he said, growing serious. “What do you think about the dead girl and the pentagram on her forehead?”
Samantha shrugged. “I think it’s a red herring. Wiccans take an oath to do no harm. Human sacrifice isn’t their thing.”
And the types of people who do believe in human sacrifice don’t use that symbol.
“Still, it’s freaky.”
“Do we know what the cause of death was?” Samantha asked. She hadn’t been able to see any trauma to the body—no gun or knife wounds, no strangulation marks either.
“Coroner’s gotta run some tests. It could be poison or something like that.”
“Or she could have had a medical condition. Neither of which points to the supernatural.”
“No witches, then? So, all that and it’s just going to be a standard investigation,” he said, sounding disappointed. “Remember last month it was that fake vampire murder and six months before was that woman who swore the ghost of her dead husband was the one who killed her boyfriend instead of her?”
“Your point?” she asked.
“Mark my words—one of these days there’s going to be something supernatural actually going on.”
“You really believe that, Ed?” she asked, carefully keeping her tone neutral.
“Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire. Plus, Vanessa saw a ghost when she was a kid and I believe her.”
“It’s always a good policy, believing your wife.”
“And you don’t believe her?” Ed asked.
“Of course I do. She’s one of the most grounded, practical people I know. If she says it happened, I take it as gospel.”
“So, off to chase down an ordinary killer. Let’s go see the boyfriend.”
“Frat Brat Brad,” Samantha said. “What more did you get on him besides a nickname?”
“Brad Jensen. His name was in Camille’s cell. According to Goth girl, he belongs to an honors fraternity. Apparently that’s how he and Camille met.”
Ed pulled up outside the fraternity house. They walked up to the front door, knocked, and the door was opened by a tired-looking guy with three-day-old stubble and coffee breath.
“We’re looking for Brad Jensen,” Ed said.
“Come in. He’s in the kitchen,” the other guy said before yawning.
They walked into the kitchen just as someone picked up a backpack and began to head out.
“Brad?” Samantha asked.
“May I help you?” he asked, open curiosity on his face. “If this is about pledging, maybe Harry can help. I’m just on my way to class. Sorry.”
Samantha looked him over. He was tall and slender with a gentle smile and innocent eyes partially obscured by glasses. He was wearing slacks, a long-sleeved shirt, and a tie and seemed comfortable in them. He didn’t look like someone who was into drawing bloody pentagrams on girls after he killed them. Samantha flashed Ed a sideways glance and could tell he was thinking the same thing.
Brad left the kitchen and they followed him into the common room.
“Brad Jensen?” she specified.
“Yes. Why?” he said, turning to look at her. There it was in his eyes, the sudden dawning that something might be wrong. She had seen that look dozens of times. Most people could sense when they were about to get bad news.
“We’re Detectives Ryan and Hofferman,” she said, flashing her badge. “We need to talk to you about Camille.”
“Is she okay?” he asked, going completely white.
“I’m afraid not,” Ed said, his voice softening. “She’s dead.”
“Dead?” Brad asked as he sank down into a green velvet armchair that had seen better days.
Ed nodded. “We understand the two of you were dating.”
Brad’s eyes had glazed over and he didn’t respond. Samantha knelt in front of him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Brad?”
“What? Sorry. Yeah. We had just met, but she was special, you know. We had so much in common.” His voice caught in his throat and he looked away.
He doesn’t want to cry in front of us.
“I told her to be careful when driving around here, that people were crazy. She wasn’t used to all the traffic, and it scared her.”
“She didn’t die in a car accident,” Samantha began.
“She was murdered,” Ed finished.
And she watched Brad’s eyes as the news shattered him. Grief, pain, and disbelief flashed across his face in quick succession. Rage would come soon enough. It was a critical moment, the one when you realized the world wasn’t safe and that those you loved could be ripped from you by evil. It would likely be a defining point of his life. She wondered, as she always did, what it was like to be innocent and then to lose it. Her own innocence had been destroyed when she was too young to even remember it.
“Was she religious?” Samantha asked.
Brad nodded. “Very. She’s M
ormon. I am too. That was one of the things that was so great. You don’t meet as many Mormons out here as you do back home.”
“Was she interested in Wicca or anything like that?”
“You mean witchcraft?” Brad asked, looking somewhat shocked.
Samantha sighed. Wicca and witchcraft were two different things, especially in the way he obviously thought.
“Yeah,” Ed said, pressing on.
Brad shook his head. “No. I mean, I know her roommate was into some weird stuff, but not Camille. She was only staying there until she could find a better place to live. The fraternity is coed. She applied for a spot in the girls’ building. I was really praying she’d get it so she could get out of there.”
“When was the last time you heard from her?” Samantha asked.
“Three nights ago. We went out to dinner. We were supposed to go to the movies tonight . . .”
The tears he had been trying to stop started to flow.
“Did anyone ever threaten her in any way?” Samantha asked.
“Who would do that? It was Camille. She was so . . . nice.”
The guy who had answered the door and two others had gathered at the far side of the room. Samantha stood and nodded, and one of them moved over and sat down next to Brad, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“If there’s anything we can do to help you find her killer, let us know,” he said, looking Samantha straight in the eye.
Brad had begun sobbing uncontrollably. Samantha and Ed took the names and phone numbers of the others in the room and then left.
“That got us nowhere,” Ed complained when they were finally back in the car.
Samantha wished she could disagree, but Brad didn’t know anything. She was sure of it.
“Someone wanted her dead. There had to be a reason, right?” Ed continued.
“Well, we’ll just have to keep looking until we find it.”
Samantha’s phone rang.
“Look at that—it does have an button.”
Samantha grimaced as she went to answer it.
“Let’s hope that’s the coroner with some good news for us,” Ed said.
“And that would be what? ‘Oops, our bad—she’s still alive’?” Samantha snapped.
Circle of Blood: A Witch Hunt Novel Page 25