I stilled, mind going into overdrive. Camera footage going missing. That sounded too familiar to be a coincidence. No way were these people just sneaking in to steal the camera footage from all these places—someone would have seen something. They could only get lucky so many times. Were they buying the footage? Paying off people on the inside?
“But we did luck out,” Astrid continued. She shut the file folder and met my gaze. “The killer—or killers—
screwed up.”
I sat down across from her and leaned toward her, reaching for the file folder. “What did we get?”
“A couple of spots of blood were found only a few feet away from the ashes, and they were untouched by the fire. We think it’s our vic, and it sounds like it matches the M.O. you’re looking for. But we’re waiting on lab results.” I scanned the file as she spoke. “And?” When Astrid didn’t continue I looked up from the folder, but her attention was focused above my shoulder.
Great. I looked behind me and up into Costa’s grim expression.
“Keep going, Astrid,” I said, and turned my attention back to the folder.
“The woman disappeared around three weeks before the ashes were found. She was young—twenty-one. And she was a siren.” Astrid’s expression went blank and her eyes unfocused, staring at the wall behind me.
“Astrid?” The young woman didn’t move at the sound of my voice. “Are you all right?” I waved my hand across the space her gaze was locked on, and she took in a deep breath.
“Sorry,” she whispered, then shooting a quick glance at Costa, she said to me, “I’m headed to the lab, if you want to come.”
Should I go to the lab? The large presence at my back reminded me of the benefits of accompanying her. I could avoid Costa for a while. Give myself a chance to overcome my embarrassment.
No, you put on your big girl pants today, remember?
No hiding out. You’re an adult.
“That’s okay, but thanks. I have some other stuff I want to follow up on. But let me know what you find out, okay? I’ll do the same.”
“Sure,” she said, but the tension in her shoulders didn’t dissipate.
“Give us a second, Costa,” I said, keeping my eyes on Astrid.
I could feel him walk away, though he made no noise.
I shot a glance over my shoulder. He was back across the room, standing safely next to the coffee pot. “What’s wrong?” I asked her.
She stood and walked around the desk, then leaned in so her mouth was only inches from my ear, and whispered,
“He feels like fire. Salamander?”
I grinned at her. “Apparently quite the wannabe pyro.”
“Where are we going, exactly?” Costa asked as he shut the passenger door of my car.
I turned the key and my little Honda purred to life.
“We’re going to talk to Natalie, our local contact with the Covenant witches.”
“You and Astrid spoke with her earlier this week, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but she wasn’t terribly helpful.” I hit the gas and brought us into traffic. Natalie’s wasn’t far from the station.
“What makes you think she’ll be more helpful now?” He braced himself against the doorframe as I made a quick turn.
“We’re going to be more persuasive. Besides, we have more info to go on. Maybe.”
Natalie Leigh waited for us in her office—alone this time. Her professional demeanor was in full force—polite smile, accommodating attitude. Until I told her why we were there.
“I’m afraid I can’t give you access to our records, Detective Whitman. Even only the ones for witches who travel a lot and…” She glanced down at the note she’d jotted when I’d started explaining what we were looking for. “…who would have the ability to burn a body to a crisp.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “Give me some of your expertise.” Natalie leaned back in her chair and gestured for me to continue.
“You told me that the only creatures that could burn a body without accelerant and within such a short timeframe to the degree we’re seeing are salamanders, a powerful witch—or a group of witches—a firebird, or a shaman.”
“Yes, to my knowledge.”
“And what type of creature could twist a succubus’s power to make it work in reverse?” I asked. Costa stiffened beside me. I probably wasn’t supposed to hand out that case information willy-nilly, but Natalie was a good person, and she worked on plenty of secretive police cases. If I could get her to take me seriously, she might help us.
Natalie’s mouth dropped open. “That’s not—I mean, such a thing isn’t possible.”
“It’s been done. To at least one succubus, and we suspect to several others.” I swallowed hard. “And we think that it’s being done to my sister right now. In this very city somewhere.”
She glanced at Costa, who nodded.
I leaned toward her. “We need your help.” Natalie took a deep breath and then nodded. “Doing such a thing is an abomination. It’s a perversion.” She paused, looking lost in thought. “And such a thing could only be accomplished by a powerful witch. Knowledgeable, too. A Covenant witch.”
“We think it might be an excommunicated witch,” Costa said.
Relief flooded her face. “Of course. Such a thing is possible.”
“Will you help us get the information we need?” I asked.
“I’ll do what I can,” she said, then quickly added, “but you have to keep this between us. I could lose my position for helping you without being authorized first.” I frowned. “How long would authorization take?” She laughed, a light musical sound. “Somewhere between forever and never. There’s no way the Covenant will authorize me to share this kind of information with the police. There’s always the small chance that it’ll be a Covenant member and they’d never willingly let anything like that come out publicly.”
She was taking a big risk for us, but I couldn’t for the life of me ask her not to. This was too important. Elaine’s life was on the line. “How big of a list do you think it would be?”
Her forehead scrunched up as she thought about my question. “Excommunicated members? There are very few—even fewer who could pull something like this off.
I’d guess less than five. Maybe only one or two that I can think of off the top of my head. I’ll have to do some research.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a rush.
“Now current Covenant members…probably a dozen or two on the continent.”
“Could a group of witches pull this off?” I didn’t want to expand our potentials list, but I had to make sure we didn’t miss the real perp just because we concentrated on the easy-to-track suspects.
“Maybe. But you’d still need to have a strong witch leading them. And he or she would need to have a lot of Covenant knowledge.” She chewed on the inside of her lip. “No. I think we should start with the potentials we already discussed. This kind of scheme, it doesn’t seem like something a group of mediocre witches—even with a well-educated one in the group—could pull off. The burnings, yes, without a doubt. But the power-twisting…
no. I just don’t see it.”
I hated to ask it—the man was ridiculously powerful—
but I had to. “Councilor Koslov. When did he get into town?”
She considered it for a moment. “Yes, I’ll admit the timing fits, but the talent doesn’t.”
“What do you mean?” I sat down in one of the chairs across from Natalie, conscious of Costa at my back.
“I mean Viktor could probably do it, given enough time and a good stash of ingredients, but it’s unlikely. Most witches, Covenant especially, have a strength in one or two elements. They tend to nurture those powers, sometimes completely ignoring the rest. Viktor isn’t a true slouch in any element—he couldn’t be, as a council member. But his strength is in water. He couldn’t pull off that sort of burning easily even if he wanted to.” She tapped her index finger against her lips.
“How much
time would he need?”
She frowned and dropped her hand to her lap. “Days, probably.”
“When do you think you’ll have a list for us?” Costa asked, and my chair back flexed under his grip, his long fingers only inches from my back.
Natalie grimaced. “A day or two. I’ll have to reach out to some sources—discreetly. This isn’t the kind of information we keep in a database somewhere.” My heart dropped, but I nodded and pushed up from my chair. I held out my hand and Natalie shook it. Costa walked to the office door and held it open for me.
“Thank you so much for your help. Finding my sister before her power is—” My voice cracked and Natalie nodded.
“I understand. I’ll be in touch.”
“I think we should go talk to the head of campus security again,” I said when we reached my car, which was parked a good distance from Natalie’s building. My refusal to pay for more than street parking had lost me many a calorie.
Besides, it didn’t seem fair to ask her to validate a parking ticket on top of risking her career to help us.
I half expected Costa to argue, or to ask if I had other reasons for wanting to talk to the man again, but he didn’t.
Instead he nodded and said, “Good idea. Something about him was off.”
“Exactly. He was sweating in a cold room. And these guys, whoever they are, have a history of paying people off to get what they want. The warehouse in St. Louis where the succubus was held that you rescued? They paid a low-level vamp to rent that under the table. And the video footage that disappeared from the Target store where some of the burned remains were found, that was likely a payoff, too.” I turned the car on and pulled into traffic.
“True. It would be a helluva lot easier to pay someone off to delete the footage and destroy any backups than to do some magical mumbo jumbo to get rid of it.” As I made a turn, Costa’s hand flew up to grip the ceiling and I grinned.
“Is it just my driving that bothers you, or other drivers in general?”
He glanced at me before his eyes moved back to the road.
I snickered and made another turn. “So, if someone is paying to have things made easier, and to make things disappear, it only stands to reason that they paid to have the video footage disappear from the library, too.”
“But they could have paid off someone in security,” Costa pointed out.
“True. But the security guy seemed nervous.” He nodded and we rode in silence for the next few minutes.
“About last night—”
“We don’t need to talk about last night,” I snapped, and then made a right turn, harder than I strictly needed to.
“I just don’t want you to think that’s something I do normally.” He glanced at me, and something in my expression made him frown. “And I don’t think it’s something you do, either.”
“I’m a succubus, remember? I thought you’d already decided I feed my tastes wherever and whenever I please,” I said bitterly.
“I made some assumptions about you—hell, Marisol, I’m sorry for that. But I have my reasons. I already apologized. Are you going to punish me for it for the rest of the damned case?”
I chewed on the inside of my lip, searching for the right response. There didn’t seem to be one. “I’m not punishing you. I just think that we both know that kissing was a bad idea. Let’s just drop it, okay?” I made a hard left, but Costa’s tight grip on the dash had lost its humor for me.
“Whatever you say.” He turned to look out his window.
We drove in silence the last few minutes to Natalie’s.
When I parked, I could almost see the tension melt from Costa’s body, and I frowned.
I was a perfectly good driver.
We walked to the security office, and I glanced at the clock above the front desk. It read two. I grimaced.
No lunch. Again. As if signaled, my stomach twisted in annoyance.
We walked down the hall, and I found myself moving lightly, with Costa far more reserved at my back. The idea of nailing the security guy to the wall—for helping someone kidnap my sister, no less—filled me with delight.
I rapped on the glazed glass on the head of security’s door, and then opened it without waiting for a response.
The man sat behind his big desk, an angry scowl on his face for our rude entrance. He looked up and met my smile, and his expression lightened. Then he saw Costa behind me, and something like fear danced across his face before the scowl returned.
“I’m sorry but I can’t help you people right now. I have shift schedules for the next month that I have to finish.
You’ll need to schedule an appointment and come back.” Costa shut the door behind us, and the door clanked loudly as it hit. Donovan started at the noise.
The squirrely man’s face suddenly enraged me, and the bit of excitement I’d felt at having a lead in Elaine’s disappearance was swept away. “Where is my sister, you son of a bitch?”
His mouth dropped open. I strode around the desk, grabbed the front of his shirt, and shook him. “Where is she?” What right did he have to walk free while she was being held somewhere, scared and maybe hurt? My blood boiled, and I yelled questions at him faster than he could answer.
Hard hands gripped my shoulders and yanked me off the weasel. I fought them, until Costa turned me around to face him. “You wait over there,” he said quietly, and nodded to the door.
Numbness replaced the anger, and I pulled free of Costa’s grip and walked around the desk, back stiff. My professional facade had failed me. Tears burned my eyes and throat.
“We’re here to talk about the money, Donovan.” Costa’s voice was hard.
I kept my face as emotionless as I could. We didn’t have a money trail on Donovan, but he didn’t know that.
Donovan shifted in his seat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re going to have to—”
“The money they paid you to get rid of the security footage. The money they paid you to lie to us. The money they paid you to help them kidnap a young woman,” Costa said, ignoring Donovan’s splutters. “You are going to tell us everything you know right now. Or you and I are going to go somewhere more private to talk.” Costa leaned over the man.
Donovan cringed as his gaze met Costa’s. And suddenly he pushed back, trying to scoot his chair away while never taking his eyes off the OWEA agent. “No—
you can’t—”
Costa slapped his palm onto Donovan’s desk. “Tell us about the money!”
“Fine!” Donovan screeched. “Fine, I’ll tell you!” Costa stood straight and crossed his arms.
“A big guy came in and threatened me if I didn’t help him. And…”
“Yes?” Costa said.
“He offered me the money, too. But that’s not why I did it. He was a scary guy.” His eyes darted to me, but he didn’t change his story. Apparently impressing me was slightly less important than not pissing off Costa. “I was worried for my life; you have to believe me!” Costa grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him up from the chair. Donovan cringed, all the wrinkles of his face suddenly visible and deeply etched, and sweat trailed down his neck to pool at Costa’s hand. Costa’s grip held firm, and what Donovan saw in Costa’s eyes made him shake.
“Stop your sniveling.” He tossed the man back down onto the chair.
“What did this man look like?” I asked.
Donovan shrugged. “Big guy. He wore sunglasses and a hat so I didn’t get that good of a look. He had tattoos on his arms—they were covered with them.” I crossed my arms and gripped my elbows, trying to focus on the conversation. A sleeve of tattoos. Just like the psychometrist had seen in her vision of Wendy’s death.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I shook with the force of my feelings. I knew that all it would take was one slip, and I’d be across that table, trying to strangle the evil little man. I tried to breathe, closing my eyes against the feelin
g.
When I opened them, Costa stood in front of me, sunglasses back on. He was shoving his cell phone into his jacket pocket. But for the life of me I couldn’t remember him making a call, let alone what he’d said.
“Come on. I’ve got a couple of uniforms coming to take him in. We’ll get an artist on the drawing tonight. By tomorrow, we should have a good idea of what this guy looks like.” He lowered his voice and touched my upper arm. “Between that and the list from Natalie, we’ll find this guy. I promise.”
I nodded woodenly, wishing I could be so certain.
Chapter Ten
Costa took over the driving after the officers arrived to take Donovan to the station. He turned the radio on and we listened to golden oldies and hit the McDonald’s drive-thru. When asked, I told him I wanted chicken nuggets and iced tea.
I blinked dumbly for a few seconds when I looked up to see us parked in front of his hotel.
“I thought we were going back to the station.”
“I figured you could use a drink. It’s only six o’clock.
Some food and a few drinks and we can talk about the case.”
He was right. And what would I do at home anyway?
Sit there and feel sorry for myself, that’s what. Sleep didn’t seem to be a valid option for me anymore, and I would think better with someone to bounce ideas off of. “I don’t really drink.”
“Well, you can watch me, then.”
I followed Costa to his room, carrying the drinks while he carried the food. His room didn’t have a table, but it had a small desk. I sat there and ate my nuggets, while Costa ate his hamburger on the edge of the bed. True to his word, Costa had beer and some of the whiskey I’d seen him drink before. I hated whiskey and liked beer even less, but to each their own. I’d seen cops turn to much worse things than the occasional drink—couldn’t blame them with the things we saw on the job.
We ate mostly in silence, commenting occasionally about the news program on television. “So why do you think he’s doing this?” I asked Costa after we’d finished eating.
Costa didn’t ask who I meant. Instead he clicked off the television and faced me. “Greed, I guess. You’ve been a cop for a while. You know what people will do for money.” I frowned. “I get that. I mean, as much as I can. But if it was only about the money, then why move on to different otherworlders—nonsuccubi?” If my theory actually held water, that was.
Succubus Lost (Files from the Otherworlder Enforcement Agency, #2) Page 9