by Krista Walsh
“Is there anything else you saw or heard, Miss Heartstone?” he asked. There was a note to his tired voice that told her she was the last person in the world he wanted to speak with tonight, and it stung.
“A window broke while I was walking down the hallway,” she said. “There was some glass on the floor in the room, but most of it must have fallen outside. It could have been the murderer getting away.”
“From the third floor?” Meg asked, her words dripping with disdain.
Daphne swallowed the response she wanted to give. “The window broke only a few seconds before I walked into the room, and I didn’t see anyone leave.” Meg added that to her notes, and Daphne looked to Hunter. “Do you have any idea who the victim is or what happened to him?”
He tilted his head, his light gaze appraising her. “No,” he said, and Daphne tried not to flinch at the finality of his tone. Whatever the police found that night, she wouldn’t be the first to hear about it.
He crossed his arms and asked, “What’s the name of your friend who gave you the tip?”
“Denise Longbarrow,” she replied, silently apologizing to Denise for dragging her into police business. “Thirty-six years old, nurse at New Haven General, married to a welder named Bob. She has two beautiful children, ages three and six, Leslie and Peter, so I would suggest you wait until tomorrow to call on them and ask your questions. The woman rarely gets any sleep as it is.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” he replied, but Daphne interpreted the meaning under the words. The first hours were crucial for any case, regardless of sleeping children.
“You’ll stay where I can reach you if I have any more questions?” he asked.
Daphne nodded.
“Then I’ll escort you outside.” He turned to his partner. “See if the techs have found anything. I’ll make sure Miss Heartstone clears the premises, and then I’ll wait for Hugh. He should be here any minute.”
Meg nodded and turned on her heel, striding toward one of the rooms where the technicians were working.
Hunter extended his hand, inviting Daphne to lead the way.
She looked over her shoulder as she moved toward the stairs, hoping to catch something of the green magic she’d sensed earlier. All she saw were more imprints drifting among the technicians, neither group aware of the other.
Hunter followed her down both flights of stairs. They hit the lobby, and again Daphne caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye — people running for the operating room, wheeling unwieldy beds behind them. Hunter didn’t see them, so she did her best to ignore it.
Once they reached the door, well away from Meg’s attentive ears, Daphne paused and took a leap.
“I don’t suppose you’ll keep me in the loop about what you find here. For the story.”
“I don’t suppose I will,” Hunter replied.
His answer didn’t surprise her, but it did make her own intentions more difficult. Finding out more about the house would mean going behind his back, and as much as she didn’t want to do that, she couldn’t let things stand as they were.
The memory of someone sobbing tugged at her heart and the dead victim upstairs needed justice. If she was wrong about the cause of death being an unearthly source, she trusted Hunter and Meg to solve the crime through regular channels, but if she was right and something bigger was going on at Peony House, she would need to use her own methods to find the answer. Hunter could have the young man’s case — for her, the story was Peony House itself. She would do whatever it took to clean out some of her dark past.
She stepped onto the front steps and paused again. She felt reluctant to leave and suspected it had less to do with the ghosts and more to do with Hunter’s determined professional stoicism.
“Off the record, what are your first impressions?” she asked. “The mouth glued shut, the open eyes, no obvious injury or cause of death — what are you thinking?”
“Don’t think I’m blind to your strategies, Miss Heartstone, trying to get information off of me by offering false details. You know damn well the victim’s mouth wasn’t glued shut.”
His reply staggered Daphne, and her mind stumbled to understand his words. The thread-like strands had been so clear under her flashlight beam, the sealant stretching the lips until the edges of the skin paled with the pressure. As though he had struggled to scream out and been unable to.
She’d detected magic in the strands, so was it possible the police couldn’t see it? She tucked the question away for later.
Hunter frowned and rested his hand on the stone banister on the edge of the porch. “Off the record, the moment I heard you were the person to find the body, I expected something like this. For some reason, we always meet at the weird ones.”
Daphne chuckled dryly. “You can’t say I don’t keep things interesting.”
“Let’s limit the interesting on this one, all right? There’s going to be enough attention directed our way considering whose property we’re on.” Daphne opened her mouth to speak, and Hunter raised a hand to stop her. “Don’t. Forget I said that. If I see one word of that statement in tomorrow’s paper, I really will bring you up on trespassing charges.”
He sounded even more tired than when he had questioned her, and Daphne hoped his exhaustion was for more reasons than just being around her.
“I am trying, you know,” she said, then bit down on her tongue. She didn’t know what had compelled her to speak.
“Trying to what?” Hunter asked. “Infuriate me? Because you’ve already done that.”
“To be less of a pain in the ass,” she said, pushed to reply out of hurt that her presence triggered such hostility. “I know what I used to be, and I know what I’ve done, but I’ve been working really hard to make up for my mistakes. For the last year my stories have been clean, haven’t they? The only information included is what I was able to get through official channels and talking to the right people. Just like any decent, ethical journalist would do. Tell me you haven’t noticed.”
His hard stare never left her face. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t read your stories.”
Daphne swallowed her retort and dropped her gaze.
He either regretted his shortness or felt the need to explain, because he added, “I don’t read any stories about my cases. I don’t find they help my self-esteem.”
She sniffed a short laugh in reply, but it took her a moment to find the courage to look him in the eye again. “I just mean I’m doing my best. If there was anything else I could do to make it up to you, I would, but this is all I’ve got right now.”
Hunter took a step closer, his height making him tower over her. He leaned in close enough that his warm breath tickled her ear. She closed her eyes and remembered a time when his closeness would have led to a kiss or the light graze of his fingers over her cheek.
In a low voice he said, “If you want to make it up to me, promise me you’ll keep your nose out of this case. Let someone else on your team take it if you have to, but keep out. Promise?”
Her mind stumbled and her mouth went dry. She opened her eyes and stepped back, catching his gaze. “What? I can’t do that. This is my job we’re talking about. I need this story.”
The furrow on his brow deepened. “You found the body, Daphne. You might have even heard the murderer getting away, and that makes you a witness. Having you poke around would raise all kinds of questions.”
Daphne ran her hands over her hair to stop herself from chewing on her thumb. Tension squeezed her stomach as the walls closed in around her. “You don’t understand the spot I’m in. Walking the straight and narrow has put my job at risk. If I pass this story off —”
“What does it feel like, believing your job is on the line?” Hunter asked.
Daphne bit her tongue at the scorching sarcasm. In one last bid to get him to see reason, she said. “You’re asking me to walk away from the headline of the year.”
“I am,” he said, nodding. “I don’t t
rust your methods, no matter how clean you say they are. I’ll have enough to deal with here that I don’t need to be tracking your steps to see how you’re going to mess it up for me. So do me a favor and keep yourself out of trouble. Walk away. If you don’t, I guarantee I will be on your ass. One slip — one breach of ethics — and I will slam you for whatever I can find.”
A swell of anger rose in Daphne’s blood, choking her, but the rage was directed more at herself than at him. She kicked herself for pushing the issue and making her situation even more complicated.
If she handed the story to someone else on her team, she would lose priority for the next incoming tip. Gerry would have her writing about stolen cars and road accidents.
Plus there was the other story, the one Hunter didn’t know existed. She couldn’t let this drop.
But the cost of moving forward and having him find out would be just as much of a setback to her new life as the hit to her career.
Anxiety twisted her insides, but the ghostly whispers left no doubt as to her decision. She would have to do her best to stay out of Hunter’s way and apologize later.
Reluctantly, she lied. “Fine, I’ll walk.”
She waited for him to say anything else, but he directed his attention toward her car. Resigning herself to the fact that their conversation was over, she dragged her feet in that direction. “All right, I’ll leave this horror in your capable hands,” she said, forcing a friendly tone. “But don’t stay up too late. You don’t know what the ghosts will do when your back is turned.”
She wished she were only joking.
3
Daphne walked to her car as the heavy wooden doors closed behind her.
She didn’t like the way she’d left things with Hunter, or with the hospital, but did her best to brush off her suffocating frustration.
Patience, she told herself, the same mantra she’d repeated since she’d made the decision to go clean. These things take time.
But she wondered how much time it would take before the troubles at Peony House grew worse. The whispers and sobs sounded too close, too substantial to be from ghosts on the edge of crossing over.
With so many thoughts whirling through her mind, she had no intention of returning home to her slippers and beer. Her journalistic instincts had been switched on, so she wouldn’t be able to rest until she had at least one solid lead to follow. And as things stood now, the only starting point in view was the friend who had sent her to Peony House in the first place.
She started her car, backed out of the driveway, and headed down the street. As soon as she was far enough that her car would blend in with the others parked at the side of the road, she pulled over and speed-walked the five minutes back to her friend’s bungalow down the street from the hospital.
She hoped Denise might have seen something without realizing it, maybe a memory that could be jogged with a few pointed questions.
Denise opened the door as Daphne came up the front step and pressed her finger to her lips. “The kids are asleep.” Her glasses were perched on her head, and she still wore her scrubs from her afternoon shift in spite of the late hour. She leaned outside to get a better view of the hospital. “What the hell is going on over there? Bob and I saw the cop cars go by ten minutes ago. Was I right? Did you catch someone important doing the nasty with someone else important? Were they people we don’t like?”
The tips of her curly black ponytail bobbed on her shoulders as she tried to see past the trees.
Daphne had first met Denise a year and a half ago in the emergency room when an attempt to sneak through the window of an office building had failed. Her arm had required thirteen stitches, and by the time she’d left the hospital, she’d gained a friend who shared her gray morals and love of drama.
Daphne glanced over her shoulder, hoping she had a few minutes before Hunter made his way to the house. “I don’t suppose you could let me in for a tick? I’ve been warned away from the case, so talking to a potential witness might be frowned upon. I could also really use a drink.”
Denise stepped aside, but kept her eye on Peony House. Once Daphne passed through the living room and into the kitchen to grab the bottle of whiskey from the top of the fridge, her friend finally closed the door. She came into the room and leaned against the wall, her arms crossed.
“Where’s Bob?” Daphne asked. She poured herself a shot and knocked it back. The alcohol burned down her throat and she breathed out a sigh, letting the warmth wash away the image of the dead kid. After all the horrors she’d seen throughout her dark magic exploration and during her time with the Chronicle, she hadn’t believed the sight of him would bother her so much. The thought of going home and trying to sleep made the walls closing in on her shift another inch.
“Downstairs in the den watching the news. I think he’s hoping to see our house on TV. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Denise gestured for Daphne to sit down on the ratty couch in the living room. The gray upholstery was covered by a blue-and-white crocheted afghan that had been destroyed by years of young children and puppies. Daphne considered it the most comfortable couch in the universe and sank into it with the same pleasure as stepping into a warm hug. “You’re acting like you’ve landed on the story of the year. Are you going to share?”
“No scandal,” she replied. “Try a dead body.”
Denise’s hand flew to her mouth, and she craned her neck in the direction of the hospital as though she were trying to see through the walls. “Shit.”
“Young guy, too,” Daphne added.
Denise went pale, and she moved around Daphne to go to the kitchen. When she returned, she carried the bottle of whiskey. “You’re going to need more than one shot, I think.”
Daphne waved her away. “I can’t. I have to drive home.”
Her friend raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m going to let you drive home in the state you’re in, whiskey or not? You haven’t stopped shaking since you stepped inside.”
Daphne glanced at her trembling hands, not sure when the shaking had started. She stuffed one hand between her legs to hide it from view and extended her empty glass in the other. “All right, but if you get another knock on the door, I’m out of here, and you haven’t heard from me since you called. Hunter doesn’t need to know I decided to stick around.”
“You and that man,” Denise said, shaking her head.
“Not tonight, okay?” Daphne replied, sagging deeper into the couch.
“You didn’t push his buttons again, did you? At this rate, he’s going to run away from you on sight instead of running into your arms.”
Daphne snorted. “I have no expectation that he’s going to run anywhere close to me. But I was on my best behavior. Even agreed to pass the story off to another journalist.”
Denise’s eyes widened. “Damn.” She poured herself the extra glass she’d grabbed from the kitchen, took a sip, and grimaced at the sharpness. “Can you afford to pass it off?”
“Nope,” Daphne said, taking another drink. “Not even a little bit.”
“I wish I hadn’t sent you over there now. Dead body, and now Gerry coming down on your head? The last thing you need is more nightmares.”
The reference to the second time their paths crossed brought back a series of memories Daphne had long tried to forget.
That meeting had been three months after the first, when she’d been admitted for the excruciating pain cutting through her body. The doctor’s first guess had been an overdose, and although all the tests came back negative and the cause was charted as unknown, he was right.
Daphne had spent the earlier part of the night trapped in a fight with Jermaine, New Haven’s most powerful warlock, who first tried to steal her magic only to find that she’d twisted his spell around to absorb his. Her body had borne the brunt of the merger as her magic struggled to mesh with the new power filling her veins.
She had spent three nights in the hospital, waking up in cold sweats, screaming night after
night. Denise, then the night-shift nurse, had sat with her to talk her through the horrors.
Her condition remained a mystery to Denise, a mystery she never ceased to bring up, but Daphne evaded the questions. She could think of no explanation for what had happened that wouldn’t have her admitted to the psychiatric ward.
But she was grateful for Denise’s concern over her mental health. At the moment, she didn’t think she could avoid the nightmares. The wide empty eyes of the young man in the hospital had been so similar to the vacant, enchanted eyes that had stared at her the night she fought Jermaine. The eyes of the would-be sacrificial victims she’d risked her life to save.
She felt as though her life kept moving in circles, and no matter how much she changed her ways, she would always come back to someone staring at her in terror.
“If you hadn’t called me, who knows how long it would have taken for someone else to find the kid,” she replied, shaking herself out of her memories.
“Was it bad?”
Daphne grimaced as she took another sip of whiskey. “Bad enough. Weird. No apparent injuries.” She left the description at that, not wanting to share the horror with anyone who didn’t need to imagine it. Her journalist brain wished she’d taken a picture with her phone to pull details for her future article, but the side of her that wasn’t an ambitious bitch was glad she hadn’t thought of it in time.
“But you’re going to pass off the story. A murder that you found,” said Denise, and Daphne didn’t fail to notice her words came out more as a statement than a question.
“Of course. I promised I would.”
Denise rolled her eyes. “For someone I know to be an excellent liar, you can be an awful liar. Are you sure it’s the smartest thing to do, knowing he doesn’t want you near it?”
Daphne leaned forward on her knees and rolled her glass between her palms. “I don’t plan to get in his way. I’ve already got an idea about what happened, and it’s nothing he’ll come up with.”