Winterstruck: an urban fantasy supernatural crime thriller

by Sara C. Walker

  "Where is he?"

  I shook my head. "I don't know."

  In a blur, her hand shot out. She grabbed my throat, fingers digging.

  "I swear I don't know," I gasped. "I came here to find him."

  "Why?"

  Pain burst under her fingertips. I struggled to breathe. She eased off just enough to allow me to respond. I gasped for air. Oxygen flooded my lungs, gave me enough power to think.

  Admitting I wanted to arrest him seemed like a bad idea. "He was out. I wanted to make sure he got back here safely."

  "Out. Outside. How?"

  "I don't know. I'm trying to find out. If you let me go, I can find out."

  Her fingers tightened, her eyes flickering as she struggled to decide what to do.

  I pushed my gun to her chest. "Please. Don't make me shoot you."

  She wasn't instantly repelled by the touch of metal.

  Shit.

  What the hell was this place? Who the fuck was she?

  Her eyes lost focus as she stared at my face.

  "You," she whispered.

  I had absolutely no doubt she could snap my neck as if it were a dry twig. Suddenly, she released me.

  "I know you. I remember you," she said.

  I bent over, coughing as I took in air against the pain in my throat. Scrambling, I reached behind me and yanked open the door, hell-bent on getting the fuck out of there, when I was struck by her final words to me:

  "Please," she said. "Help us."

  I slipped through the door and let it close between us.

  14

  I fell to one knee, trying to catch my breath, hoping that by swallowing repeatedly I might push my throat back out to its natural position. I worked my thumb across my phone trying to dial Magnusson.

  "Hello?" a voice called out.

  Given the option, I would have closed the door carefully, quietly. Given the option, I would have checked the storage room for people before returning to it. But Nest Hair Lady took away that option.

  Someone was down here, and they’d heard the door shut.

  Crap.

  An employee of the Gardens approached with caution.

  I held up my hand that clutched my cell phone in a casual wave to let her know everything was all right, while I coughed and gagged and tucked my gun into my jacket pocket.

  "You're not supposed to be here," she said. "You're—you're trespassing."

  Didn't I just have this conversation?

  "Sorry," I said. "I got lost looking for the washroom."

  The employee opened her mouth, but was cut off by another voice.

  "Julia? Is that you?"

  I recognized the shrill tone of my mother's voice, and my stomach knotted automatically.

  "Mother? What are you doing here?" I couldn't keep the surprise out of my voice. My mother, in her Armani suits, would never be caught dead in a damp dusty basement.

  She exited one of the aisles of shelves. Her suit was blush pink today. She still wore heels—not the stilettos she used to walk around in, though—now she sported more sensible old lady wedges. I bet they still cost more than my weekly paycheque. A pair of large male employees flanked her like bodyguards, though I suspected they were here for heavy lifting—unless my mother's paranoia had escalated.

  "Picking out china patterns. I'm the event decoration committee," she snapped. "What the devil are you doing here?"

  There was nothing grandmotherly about Belinda Ivory, though she was certainly old enough to be one. She had a narrow face and a sharp nose. She could have been a sister to tall, skinny actors like Allison Janney or Carol Burnette. Her puff of white hair was perfectly coiffed, thanks to an hour at the hair salon every morning, where she also collected the local gossip. Her lips were perpetually pursed. Today they were stained dark rose.

  She'd always been thin, but she actually had lost noticeable weight since I last saw her. It was hard to tell with the suit, but her jaw and chin jutted a little more, and she had the calf muscles of a stork.

  "I…uh…I was looking for you." I shoved my left hand into my pocket, my fingers fumbling for the engagement ring. "I have good news."

  "Here? You were looking for me here?"

  "Yes, I heard you called me the other day—"

  "In the basement? Why in heavens would you look for me in the basement of this place?" Her eyes narrowed. "You're up to something."

  "I'm not up to something. I'm—"

  "Do you deny being in the basement of the Gardens?"

  "No, obviously I'm in the basement—"

  Mother turned to the large man on her right. "She is not a member of the Gardens. She doesn't belong here."

  "I can explain—"

  "Arrest her." My mother snapped her fingers.

  My jaw fell open. Did she even have the authority to do that?

  "For what?" I asked.

  "Trespassing," she hissed. A shiver passed over my skin. My mother was entirely, one-hundred percent human, but that single word was too close to Nest Hair Lady's words. Magnusson would say there's no such thing as coincidence, but I knew that's all this could be.

  I swallowed. "You don't have the authority to arrest me."

  "Then we will hold you here until the authorities arrive." She nodded her chin at the female employee. "You. Go call the police." When the young woman didn't move, obviously unsure what to make of this bizarre situation, my mother snapped at her, "Go! Or you will find yourself spending the afternoon at the unemployment office!"

  The woman went.

  My mother scowled. "Search her. She's probably trying to steal something."

  The employees moved toward me.

  I stepped back with my hands held up. I normally wouldn't have cared if they searched me, but I really didn't want them to find my gun. "Whoa. Wait a minute. I'm not stealing anything—"

  "Nonsense. You have a history of theft."

  Anger boiled out of nowhere, threatening to explode. "That's not fair."

  "Is it not? Are you really going to try to argue with me again?"

  I shut my mouth and bit down hard. We'd been over this same argument many times. As far as she was concerned, there was only one version of events: hers. She didn't care that her version wasn't even on the same planet as the truth.

  "I came here to find you, Mother, because I'm getting married and want to have the ceremony here. I thought you would be pleased." My hands were still held up so I turned my left hand around to show her the ring.

  She narrowed her eyes. "Yes. I know about the ring."

  "You do?"

  "The fiancé you’ve never bothered to introduce me to called me to ask for my permission to marry you."

  "He did?"

  "Search her," she said again.

  A wave of shock rode through me. "You can't do that. I have rights."

  She shrugged. "I don't care."

  The male employees moved into position on either side of me, and this time I let them. I raised my arms over my head to make things easier and to show I wasn't going to resist. I could have—and probably should have—knocked them both out and made a run for it, or I could have pulled out my badge and offered up a feeble explanation. They were about to find the badge on their own. They were about to find the gun.

  Shit. Memory spray wasn't going to fix this.

  There was something odd about these employees. They were definitely behaving more like bodyguards and less like stock boys. Their pat-down was remarkably professional. They found the "breath" spray, badge, and gun and took the items (with my cell phone) back to my mother.

  "What is this?" She flipped open the badge and scratched a fingernail across the paint, arching an eyebrow when she realized it was real. Then she picked up the gun. "What game are you playing, Julia?"

  The knot in my stomach tightened, but I remained standing with my hands raised in the air.

  "Be careful with that," I said. "It's real."

  Amazingly, my voice sounded calm despite the fearful pounding
of my heart.

  She held my identification in her left hand and wrapped the fingers of her right around the handle of my gun. "I want an explanation for this."

  In that moment, I realized I had something over her. I finally had a power and authority she would never have.

  And she had no choice but to respect it.

  I shrugged. "Can't."

  Her mouth drew tight, she squared her shoulders, and I recognized the signs of her going into combat mode.

  "Julia, I grow tired of your games. You will tell me exactly why you are here and why you were carrying these items." Her words were calm and steady but edged with anger. I'd been keeping a secret from her and now she was pissed.

  "Gee, Mother. I'd love to, but I can't. It's a matter of national security." I shrugged as well as I could with my hands in the air. My fingertips tingled from the lack of blood circulation.

  Her whole face went red. Her eyes flashed with anger. As a child, I would be bracing myself for the coming blow. But I was a fully-grown adult in a room filled with other fully grown adults. She wouldn't dare.

  She lashed out and struck the side of my face with the back of her hand.

  How about that. She dared.

  Her words were sharp like pointed icicles smashing on the sidewalk. "Mind. Your. Manners."

  I could almost feel the pain of that spanking long ago. Although my parents wrote a cheque to cover the damage to the tree, my mother continued to harp on at me over the years about how it wasn't about the tree. It was that I'd lied to her about the girl and the pinecone.

  Partly out of indifference and partly to get some blood flowing to my arms again, I shrugged.

  "Have you been doing pilates again, Mother? You look like you've lost weight. Can I get the name of your trainer? Maybe these guys are your trainers. I bet they're hiding some hefty muscles under those suits."

  They didn't have the eyes of stock boys. Stock boys would be freaking out about now. These guys were impassive, acting as though they were bored while taking in every detail.

  Professionals. Definitely.

  Were they guarding my mother? Or were they guarding the secret room? If they were here to guard the room, where were they when I came down the stairs? Was my mother involved with the fae somehow? Or was she working her own agenda and here with bodyguards by coincidence?

  Magnusson might not believe in coincidence, but this was my mother. There was no way, at all, ever that she would involve herself with what was behind that door. She was far too practical to accept the existence of fae, and as for the utter shambles of bodies behind that door, well, if Belinda Ivory were involved, those fae would be sorted by size and labelled at the very least.

  So what the hell were these bodyguards doing here?

  We were at an impasse, neither of us willing to explain ourselves.

  The officers strode into the room and saw the gun in my mother's hands and me standing with my arms up. Weapons were whipped out. Things got confusing for a few moments—the bodyguards were told to get down on the floor. My mother handed over my gun but refused to get on the floor. One of the officers started to force her arms behind her back, wrenching her to the floor, but she started crying out names of lawyers and threats of lawsuits for police brutality and her ruined Armani suit.

  Ah, lawsuits. My mother's second favourite kind of suit.

  I lost sight of my weapon. When things sorted themselves out again, my weapon was in the hands of a police officer, along with my badge and cell phone. The bodyguards were still on the floor, and my mother was very calmly sitting in a chair that someone had provided for her after her cries of feeling faint.

  I recognized the officer holding my stuff: Wheeler. The officer from the arena. The one who thought I was a joke.

  He smirked, clearly recognizing me.

  After hearing my mother's rantings and my quiet rebuttals, the officers decided to sort it all out down at the station. While my mother was allowed to drive over with her goons in her own car, I was loaded into the back of a police cruiser.

  I should have been allowed to go free the second they put eyes on my ID. They should have called in my badge number and found I was legit. I should have been allowed to drive myself down to the station, afforded the same courtesy as my mother.

  Apparently, it wasn't going to work that way today.

  15

  Down at the station, I was led through a door at the back, through security, and put into a room. The room was empty but for a table and a chair. There were no cameras and no two-way mirror. The door was locked.

  At least they'd removed the handcuffs.

  I sat down at the table and waited. As soon as they processed my identification and checked the registration for my gun, they would let me go. They had no reason to hold me. But I wasn't holding my breath for them to check my ID any time soon. They would take my mother's statement first, and then the statements from the two bodyguards. They would interview the Gardens' employees. And when they got around to running my ID, they'd take some time to call my boss and ask him why I was at the Gardens.

  Shouting voices made their way up the hallway outside my room. The door sprang open and in the next moment, the tall, bulky shape of my boss filled the frame. He glared at me with his ice-blue eyes. I sprang out of the chair. Time to go? Already?

  Behind him, a man ranted like a barking dog, going on about rules and procedures. I didn't recognize him, but I knew the officer standing beside him: Wheeler. He narrowed his eyes when he saw me.

  Magnusson turned sideways. He took my cell phone from the ranting man and handed it to me. Then he did the same with my badge and handgun. I tucked everything away.

  "I don't care if you're federal; this is my investigation," the man railed. He wore a brown suit with a loosened tie and his face was flushed from screaming.

  "That's what you're not understanding," Magnusson said. "You don't have an investigation."

  "Your employee—"

  "Was found in a public building doing her job." Magnusson took a step closer to Brown Suit, his shoulders tight, the muscles in his neck drawn. Brown Suit seethed with rage, eyes popping, nostrils flared. The air took on the feeling it did just before punches were thrown.

  "Handley," someone down the hall barked.

  Brown Suit didn't break eye contact with Magnusson. "Yeah?"

  "Get back to your desk."

  Handley didn't move. "I'm in the middle of something."

  "No. You're not."

  Handley stayed where he was, but I could see the fight was dying in him. His skin was fading back to a normal colour. Finally—reluctantly—he turned away from Magnusson and retreated down the hallway with Wheeler at his heels.

  Magnusson stepped out of the doorway and I followed him into the hall, where I found the police chief standing with someone familiar—Detective Craddock, our covert contact within the ranks of the police department.

  "Your people are costing me time and money," the chief said to Magnusson.

  A red flush crawled up from the collar of Magnusson's shirt. "The second my people present their badges, your people need to back off and get the hell out of the way. Who's costing who time and money?"

  The air sang with the tension of a musical note played just beyond hearing range. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

  This police chief clearly had no idea what we did for this city, nor just how dangerous it would get if we couldn't do our jobs. He shifted the tight muscles of his jaw.

  "I want daily reports on your people's activity," he barked. "I want to know where they're going and what they're investigating. I want a record of their every move in my city."

  My boss didn't even blink an eye.

  "Not going to happen," Magnusson said. "We're done here."

  Magnusson headed for the end of the hallway and I followed in his wake.

  "I want reports," the chief called out behind us, "or your little operation might find itself tonight's news headline."


  Magnusson stopped. He turned and stared at the chief. "You just threatened to compromise national security. Do you know what that makes you? A traitor. Do you know what the penalty is for someone who commits an act of treason? Life in prison. If you last that long. I hear things get pretty tough for cops behind bars."

  The air in the hallway became pregnant with words not said and action not taken. Then Magnusson turned on his heel and we left.

  While waiting for the clerk to retrieve my things, I told the boss that I recognized Wheeler and where I’d seen him before. He said he would send Oshaun to follow up.

  "Tell me there was a reason for all this," Magnusson said.

  "I—"

  I didn’t want to tell him what I found under the Conservatory. Not yet. Not until I knew what I was dealing with. And to get that information, I needed to talk to Simon. I needed to commit treason. In the meantime, I needed to tell the boss something.

  "I was following up on a lead to find Flint," I confessed.

  "And?"

  "I didn’t find him."

  He blew out a breath. "So all this was for nothing."

  He scrubbed a hand over his face and the top of his head with a distant, worried look in his eyes. "We need an arrest," he said, and then turned and walked out of the station.

  The clerk tossed a heavy zip-locked plastic bag onto the counter. "Sign here," he said.

  "Wait—" But it was too late. Magnusson was gone, and I needed a ride back to my car.

  It was turning out to be a stellar day.

  16

  A patrol cop took me back to my car at the Conservatory.

  "I feel sorry for you," I said. "Having to work with Wheeler."

  The cop shrugged. "Guy’s got a point. Your secrets prevent us from doing our jobs."

  "Would you say the same if there was team of Navy Seals on a mission here?"

  He shrugged again. "That’s different."

  "It’s not," I snapped.

  "They’re Navy Seals. Trained operatives. You’re not."