by Anna Windsor
Camille studied Dio’s list, then read the thirty names aloud. “None of those sound familiar to me.”
“Me either.” Duncan tipped his head back to check out the low-rise. “Six floors—kinda looks like the Flowerbox Building, but I don’t think this place has condos.”
Bela frowned as the green, stinking trace energy she was using as her marker began to fade. Too much time had passed, and the trail was degrading. “We’ve got the list, and the energy’s vanishing fast. Let’s follow it inside while we can still see where it takes us.”
Four floors later, they stood outside the door of apartment 4-9, at the end of a hall nearest the staircase they had used. New brown tile covered the hallway, so fresh the grout still had traces of white, and the scent of fresh paint almost blocked the stench from the poisoned energy. The green tracers approached the apartment door, then seemed to disappear behind it.
Bela had to work not to break into cackles like the old Russian Mothers, she felt so triumphant. Camille gave off small but steady puffs of smoke, while water trickled from the tips of Andy’s fingers, and Dio churned the air until two wind-devils scooted down the hall’s brown tile.
“Here, damn it.” Bela grabbed Duncan’s hand and squeezed it. “Right here. We finally tracked one of these bastards. Who is it?”
Dio whipped out her list. “Four-nine’s registered to a Samuel Griffen, but you know how long it takes to update these databases. This could be years old.”
Camille stepped up to the door, fingers extended, tiny fire-lasers already snaking toward the painted metal. “I’ll check out what’s inside.”
“No, stop!” Bela let go of Duncan and moved between Camille and the door before Camille could lose herself in her fire’s energy. “There could be elemental traps. We don’t want to spring any and get hurt, or blow the sides off the building.”
“Guess we’ll do this the old-fashioned way.” Andy shoved up the sleeves of her leathers and drew her dart pistol from its holster. She had some sort of silent communication with Duncan, like police officers so often did, and without further prompting, he moved to one side of the door and Andy went to the other.
Duncan drew the Glock he had retrieved from Bela’s bedroom. “Do me a favor, Angel, and come over here beside me. Dio and Camille, you two stand with Andy.”
Bela drew her sword when Camille did, and Dio put a throwing knife in her left hand, her strongest. They moved in silent unison.
When everyone was in position, Andy leaned out of her stance long enough to knock on the door.
No one answered, but Bela sensed movement.
“Someone’s in there,” she murmured to Duncan, knowing Andy could hear her, too. “One person, I think.”
Andy knocked again, louder and without stopping. She didn’t give any announcement of who they were, because officially, they had no sanction. This hadn’t been approved by anybody, least of all OCU and the NYPD.
“All right, all right,” said a male voice Bela didn’t recognize, and Andy eased up on her pounding.
Footsteps came forward and stopped.
Bela assumed that the person on the other side of the door was looking out of his peephole and wondering why he didn’t see anything. Andy did a quick lean across the hole’s range, then popped back to her position.
Whoever was looking likely saw a flash of red hair and leather.
The door’s chains and locks rattled.
Duncan and Andy tensed. Bela tightened her grip on her sword and kept her knees and elbows loose, ready to spring.
The door swung open, and everyone came out of their battle stances at the same time.
Bela lowered her sword even though Duncan kept his gun leveled on the boy who stood blinking in the hallway’s meager lights. His wide, shocked eyes were red-rimmed, and the odor of just-smoked weed seeped out of the apartment.
“That’s not the guy who jumped me in the alley.” Duncan lowered his Glock to his right. “But you look familiar, kid. Where have I seen you before?”
The boy was wearing jeans this time, and a gray sweatshirt, but there was no mistaking the dark hair and eyes, or the smart-ass expression still lingering on his youthful, slack face.
Maybe it was the sword, but this time he didn’t try for a look at Bela’s boobs.
“Walker Drake.” Bela sheathed her blade. “Looks like we need to have a little chat at the old Fourteenth after all.”
(27)
Duncan knew they really didn’t have a choice about explaining some of the situation to Jeremiah Drake. Bela did most of the talking about Sibyls and tracking energy, and she came off beautiful and elegant and articulate, even in slightly soiled battle leathers. It was a pleasure listening to her, even if she was discussing things most people would be confined to hospitals for believing.
Jack Blackmore and Duncan filled in details for Drake and his lawyer while Dio, Camille, and Andy kept watch on Walker in the precinct’s little holding cell. Actually, Bela’s quad was feeding Walker everything they could find in the precinct vending machines to help the little puke come down from the pot he’d smoked before they located him.
When Bela finished, Duncan was surprised Drake didn’t laugh them out of the interrogation room. Reese Patterson hadn’t answered calls on his cell or his phone, probably because it was four in the morning, so Drake brought some grumpy-looking old guy in a wrinkled black suit. His name was Donovan Figg. With his major thick glasses and his puckered mouth, the lawyer really looked like he deserved that name.
Figg, who was seated at the end of the table closest to the interrogation room door, leaned back in his chair and stared at Blackjack and Bela. “Let’s say we even begin to believe you enough to cooperate with this nonsense, or we humor you because Jeremiah’s grateful that you located Walker after he’d been missing half the night. Nothing we do or say here will ever hold up in court. Not once I start telling them about all this madness.”
“Exactly.” Blackjack, who had blown out of Presbyterian’s burn center against medical advice when Duncan called, managed to look convincing despite the thick dressings the Mothers had applied to his blistered right arm and hand after he left the hospital. “So you’ve got nothing to lose, letting us talk to the boy.”
He omitted a detail that Duncan had learned: that the OCU had a set of judges and DAs who knew everything about its operations, and cooperated with warrants, arraignments, and trials by making allowances for paranormal circumstances.
“We really aren’t considering Walker a suspect at this point.” Duncan, who sat closest to Figg, offered this appeasement because it was the truth. “We think it’s a wrong-place, wrong-time situation, but we need to know who came and went from that apartment.”
Figg sniffed, then picked his teeth with one fingernail, as if to illustrate how hard he was thinking about all this. “The apartment and who goes in and out—you’ll confine your questions to that topic?”
“That, and Walker’s supernatural associations.” Bela spoke without checking with Blackjack, but Blackjack didn’t seem to mind. “If he belongs to any fringe groups, it would help us to have the names of other people involved.”
Jeremiah Drake, who was seated across from Duncan, looked very unhappy with this, but he didn’t raise any objections.
Drake and Figg conferred in low tones for a few moments, then Figg announced they were in agreement.
“You can question my son.” Jeremiah Drake got to his feet and walked to the interrogation room’s one-way glass. “But I’m staying in here with him.”
Duncan went out to the holding cell and got the boy, who looked a little miserable from all the cakes, cookies, chips, and pretzels Andy and Dio and Camille had been stuffing down his throat. “He won’t drink coffee,” Andy said like she was apologizing. “It’s the best we could do.”
Camille said, “Definitely stoned, but coming down. I think he’s pretty drunk, too.”
Walker Drake staggered a little when he walked, but didn’t say a wo
rd on the way to the interrogation room, prompting Duncan to wonder if he’d been questioned before, even though his juvie record was clean. There had to be a way to ask that question without crossing Figg’s lines in the sand, but Duncan couldn’t work it out. Maybe in the flow of the fact-finding, something would come to him.
When they reached the interrogation room, Figg patted a seat beside him that placed Walker directly across the room from his father, who was still standing by the one-way glass. “Right here, young man. The nice officers need to ask you a few questions, but don’t answer anything I tell you not to. We’ll be done in a few minutes, and we can all get home to bed.”
Walker eyed Figg like the lawyer made his comedown nausea worse, and Duncan didn’t blame the kid for his spectacular eye roll. He took a seat on the other side of Walker, but scooted his chair so that Walker and Jeremiah had a clear view of each other.
Walker rubbed his cheeks with both hands, then seemed to become aware of his father’s presence. His head drooped, and it seemed to take him a few seconds to find his overblown adolescent bravado again.
Blackjack didn’t even try to ask the kid a question. Duncan figured that was because any moron could tell nice-daddy and mean-daddy routines wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference with Walker. Jeremiah Drake seemed to have both of those bases covered.
Bela jumped right in, calm and direct. “The apartment where we found you, Walker. Who lives there?”
Walker crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a fuck-off smirk. “A friend.”
“I see.” Bela let that sit for a second, then put her arms on the table and leaned toward the kid. “That friend may have helped kill your stepmother.”
Walker’s eye twitched, and he frowned as his hands slid from his chest to his thighs. “Nobody I know would do that.”
“Someone did.” Bela held the boy’s gaze, and he didn’t seem to be able to look away from her. “Somebody hired some very nasty creatures to tear Katrina apart. We know you fought with her. She got on your nerves—but I don’t think you wanted her dead, did you?”
Walker didn’t answer. His throat worked, and he held on to his own legs like he was scared of falling out of the chair.
Figg’s narrow little eyes turned into thread-wide slits. “Don’t answer—”
“No, I didn’t want her dead.” Walker didn’t seem to hear Figg at all. “I just wanted her gone, and she was leaving.” The kid shifted his weight, gripping the sides of the chair now, and Duncan wondered if the boy had a case of the spins. “I didn’t want her dead.”
Bela’s voice grew gentler, and her dark eyes softened. “We need to know who uses that apartment, Walker. Who goes in and out of it—and who was there tonight, before we found you?”
The kid glanced at his father. Then at his shoes.
Oh. So that’s the problem. Duncan wondered if he should block the boy’s view of Jeremiah. Junior doesn’t want Daddy to know whom he’s hanging out with, or maybe who’s supplying his stash.
Duncan checked Drake’s demeanor and realized Daddy already seemed to have an idea. The cloud that passed over Drake’s face transformed him from dapper society guy to raving maniac in about two seconds flat.
“You’re not seeing that girl again.” Drake growled like a wounded animal. “Ah, God, Walker, tell me you weren’t with that piece of trash!”
Figg straightened up in his chair. “Jeremiah—”
Drake’s face colored a deeper red. “Answer me, Walker.”
The boy let go of his chair and banged both fists on the table. “She’s not trash!”
Before Duncan saw it coming, Jeremiah Drake launched himself away from the one-way glass, bashing past Duncan to grab Walker across the table.
“Why?” His face had gone heart-attack scarlet, and he shook the kid hard. “How could you even think about it?”
Walker got pale as he pounded on his father’s arms. Figg ducked. Bela and Blackjack were on their feet, but Duncan already had Drake. The bastard fought like hell as Duncan hauled him off the kid and pinned him against the one-way glass.
“You don’t understand.” Drake was weeping now. He closed his eyes. “You don’t know.”
“I don’t,” Duncan agreed. “But you don’t get to beat the kid, no matter what it is.”
Drake went limp and kept weeping, but Duncan didn’t let him go.
“I’m fine!” Walker yelled at Bela when she tried to approach him. “Just—get away from me.”
The kid was so furious he was crying even though, Duncan knew, Walker would rather have ripped out his own eyes. He’d been that angry a few times in his younger days, and he knew it hurt like almighty hell.
Bela backed off from the boy and eased back into her chair.
“It’s my girlfriend’s place.” Walker aimed that at his father. “And she’s not trash, no matter what that bastard says. Her brother keeps the apartment for her because their mother and father are dead—and he checks on her every day. ”
“Samuel Griffen?” Bela’s question sounded natural despite all the craziness that just happened.
Walker turned his head to look at Bela. “Yeah. Sam. That’s him. He came by tonight and took her out for dinner. He does that a lot.”
Bela smiled at him, not over the top, but enough to get him to sit again. “What’s your girlfriend’s name, Walker?”
When the boy wouldn’t answer, Jeremiah Drake tensed in Duncan’s grip. “She calls herself RK,” he said while the kid glared. “Rebecca Kincaid. I didn’t even know the little bitch had a brother.”
This time, Duncan saw it coming, but he couldn’t let go of Drake.
Walker knocked his chair over as he shot up and tried to scramble over the table to get at his father.
Bela shook the table with her earth energy.
The kid caught its edges, wide-eyed, and held on while Bela grabbed his ankle. She kept him from going anywhere until Blackjack got the back of Walker’s shirt, righted the chair with his bandaged hand, and stuffed the boy into his seat.
After another few minutes, they had clarified that Rebecca Kincaid was sixteen and trouble, according to Drake, and that Drake believed the girl, who had no real parental supervision, led Walker astray. Duncan was able to let the man go, but he took him into the little room with the one-way glass to keep a physical barrier between him and the boy.
“He’s a follower.” Drake leaned his forehead against the glass and watched while Bela clarified with Walker that Rebecca Kincaid and her brother, Sam Griffen, were the only people in and out of the apartment with any regularity. “He goes along with what everyone else is doing. This is my fourth time at a police station over him—did you know that?”
“I suspected, but no. He doesn’t have a record.” Duncan switched off the sound, and Drake didn’t object. Bela was doing fine on the other side of the glass, and everything seemed to be moving along.
“Walker doesn’t have a record because Katrina and I made deals with the officers involved, and the courts, for diversion because of his substance abuse issues. We admitted him two different times for alcohol and drug addiction. We had him in psychiatric hospitals three times after that.”
Drake lifted his head from the glass, and Duncan saw a man who missed his dead wife, or at least her help with this impossible situation, even if they had been having their issues when she got killed. “Walker won’t take the meds, and they don’t help anyway. He stays clean a few months, then he goes right back to Rebecca. It’s like he’s addicted to that girl and her lifestyle as much as anything else, and—and I can’t help him. His behavior cost me my marriage. If something he did, someone he knew, got Katrina killed, I don’t know how I’m going to deal with that.”
Duncan felt for the guy; he couldn’t imagine what it would do to his world if he had a kid who’d taken such a big left turn. Still, Drake seemed to be putting a lot on the boy, like Walker was a scapegoat for problems Drake couldn’t solve on his own.
Sometimes there w
eren’t any easy answers or any easy-to-pin bad guys.
“Do you have any family Walker could stay with tonight, Mr. Drake? You two are too worked up with each other for me to feel comfortable sending you home together.”
“I’ll call my brother on Long Island.” Drake’s sigh was pure exhaustion and hopelessness. “He’s helped out before. Not that it matters, in the long run.”
(28)
Bela felt like her arms and legs weighed a few tons after using her terrasentience to track the poisoned energy, never mind the patrol and all that angst and violence during Walker Drake’s interview—but she was awake enough to appreciate Duncan’s reaction to seeing the communications platform used for the first time. When Camille climbed on the big wooden table in the brownstone’s living room and started to dance barefoot, she had to laugh at his bemused expression. Andy and Dio cracked up, too, then Dio took her leave and headed to the archives to see what, if anything, she could find on Rebecca Kincaid and Samuel Griffen.
“Work, work, work,” Andy griped at Dio as Dio took the stairs two at a time, but Dio ignored her. To Duncan, Andy said, “The first time I watched this communications thing happen, my entire vocabulary dwindled to ‘What the fuck.’ Here, sit on the end of the couch and keep your eyes on the projective mirrors. I’ll crash on the other end and give you splash if any fire gets away from her.”
Bela loosened the zipper on her leathers, then wiped down her sword and put it in the weapons closet. The energy in the room shifted a little more every minute, toward Camille, and Duncan appeared to be fascinated by the energy she stirred up by moving fire in patterns.
Flames broke out in the lead-lined trough that wound around the outside of the table. Duncan leaned back against the couch arm to spare his T-shirt, and Bela skirted the table to stand behind him. She let her earth energy flow across his clothes as she rubbed his big shoulders, deflecting stray sparks.
Each time Camille completed a circuit, the flames along the table flared higher. Chimes in the brownstone rang, one to the next, louder and louder, the sound moving in circles as Camille danced. She twisted, spun, and centered herself in front of the set of smaller mirrors, instead of the big ones they used to talk with the Motherhouses and to transport people and objects.