by Faith Hunter
JoJo looked at FireWind. “There were complaints from social services that she should never have been charged, and should certainly never have been remanded into the juvie system.” JoJo leaned away from her electronics and pushed a loose braid back from her eyes. “She got a bad deal in court and even worse in juvie. There are reports . . .” Jo stopped and started under a different tack. “When she changed her name, she did it right. She’s probably still running from something. Privacy protocols should be followed. Sir.”
“We’ll approach her carefully, Jones. Quietly,” FireWind said. “When will Margot Racer and LaFleur be back from Chattanooga?”
“They’re halfway back now,” JoJo said. “They wrapped this morning.”
“Mmmm,” FireWind mused. “Divert them to Racine’s address. Ingram and I will meet them in Kingston.”
“Sending her address and the husband’s business address to your cells,” Jo said. “I’ll forward her contact info and cell as soon as I have it.”
I went to gather my things, knowing that FireWind had chosen me because of my background. Because I’d be the one to bond with a woman who killed her abuser, if that was possible at all.
* * *
* * *
As FireWind drove I studied up on Kingston, which was close enough to Knoxville to qualify as a bedroom community of the larger city. Tennessee was a long narrow state, and most of it was rich with water resources, with rivers and reservoirs created by dams and hydroelectric plants. Yet large swaths of the state were powered by coal. The Clinch River and the Emory River met in Roane County, practically in downtown Kingston, the water resources managed by dams. The farmland was lush, the mean income was somewhere in the midrange of the state, and the area’s power was provided by a huge coal power plant built in 1955. When I told that to FireWind he asked mildly, “And all this is important why?”
“None of it would matter to the case at all, except Racine Alcock, aka Cadence Blue Thompkins Merriweather—and that’s a mouthful—her husband’s family benefited from the Tennessee Valley Authority and the coal-fired power plants from the outset. He has a trust fund that makes my eyes bug out of my head. He has access to fully ten times the county’s annual mean income each year. His family contributes to local politics and gives heavily to charity.”
“And?” he asked with exquisite patience.
“We can’t just bulldoze our way in there and expect no pushback. Local law enforcement will side with the Merriweathers, who likely support both sides of any campaign.”
“You and the other members of Unit Eighteen seem to feel that I am unfamiliar with social graces and appropriate methods to approach a wary witness or possible suspect.” His lips lifted slightly. “I assume that is because when I accepted the position over the eastern seaboard, I was less than elegant upon my approach to the unit.”
“Less than elegant?” I let my question settle on the air as I thought about my answer. “You’ve been rude more than once and bossy more than once, and you’ve stuck your nose where it doesn’t belong more than once, but I don’t necessarily think you’re obnoxious by nature, stupid, or trying to tick us off.”
FireWind’s eyebrows rose, black as raven’s wings. Amused, still patient, he asked, “No?”
I frowned, putting things together, things he had said, things that had been going on and that I hadn’t paid much attention to. “I think . . . I think you’ve been trying to integrate us into PsyLED, the first mostly nonhuman unit. I think we were an experiment started by Soul, and that you wanted a hand in what we were becoming. I think there might have been a lot of pushback about that, about letting paranormals into the department at all, starting with Rick and Paka, the first were-creatures in PsyLED. I think the pushback got worse after the Blood Tarot case. I think you’ve been trying to keep us safe and to make us better at our job, and better as a team. I think you’ve pushed to make Knoxville PsyLED the regional HQ because you want to protect us.” I glanced to see if I’d made the big boss mad before I added, “I think you want to protect Rick especially, maybe because he was involved with Jane Yellowrock, and Jane is your sister.”
“Interesting.” He glanced at me as he drove. “You would be correct. You have a gift for complicated relationships and for figuring out motives. Even mine.” He was silent, but I had a feeling he wasn’t finished. “Yes. This has been an experiment for all of us, even me. I am accustomed to certain protocols, and they are not always suitable to the unit or the circumstances. I have never worked with other paranormals.” He glanced at me from the corner of his eye and a faint smile touched the corner of his lips. “Yet even someone as old as I can learn. We’ll tread carefully with our witness.”
“Good.” I went back to my study, but nothing else jumped out at me.
JoJo sent more info to our cells and, faster than I expected, we were in Kingston, our GPS directing us to the Merriweather home. I expected a mansion, but the house was modest sized for the trust fund and the business’ coffers, but it backed up to a water view, the roof was new, the trim had been recently painted, and the landscaping was clearly professional, using all the latest chemicals and fertilizers and planted with the fanciest of nonnative, imported flora. There were two new cars parked beside the house and, as we pulled down the street, one backed out and passed us at a sedate speed. The driver looked like a rich businessman. I checked the business’ website and identified the driver as Luther Merriweather.
We parked in front of the house and took the walkway to the front porch, rang the bell, and stood there. Two minutes passed. I rang the bell again, and this time held my ID in front of the doorbell alarm.
“Mrs. Merriweather. Your car is in the drive. We know you are home,” I said, speaking in a normal tone of voice, assuming she was listening and watching us through the security cameras. “I’m Special Agent Nell Ingram. With me is Senior Special Agent Ayatas FireWind.” I folded my ID and put it away. “We’d like to talk to you about Stella Mae Ragel. We’d like to do so in the privacy of your home, but if you wish to come to Knoxville PsyLED headquarters that can be arranged. However, it will be much more public. And you may not want that.”
Over the doorbell speaker an elegant female voice said, “My lawyer will arrive in fifteen minutes. I’ve been instructed to tell you to wait outside unless you have a subpoena. Do you?”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “No one in PsyLED wanted to make this public.”
There was a silence, as if she was digesting my meaning, then she said, “My lawyer will come to the front door shortly. After she arrives, you will be invited in. Until then, please leave my property.”
I turned and went back to the car. More slowly, FireWind followed. On the way, I not-so-accidentally dropped my cell phone onto the grass. I used the excuse to touch the grass and then push through to the ground beneath. No death and decay, just snobby grass that had started out as snobby sod.
We got in the car and FireWind touched the starter button. The air conditioner blasted in, though the day wasn’t hot enough to need it. We waited for several silent minutes until my boss said, “What did you detect when you picked up your cell phone?”
“Not a thing. No death and decay there at all.”
He made a little hmmming sound and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he stared out the windshield, thinking. “I misspoke. I’m not certain I’ll ever fit into this electronic world. I know about doorbell cameras and security systems, but I am still occasionally flummoxed by the swift pattern of changes and developments.”
“Me too, and not because I’ve lived too long but because I lived off the grid for so long. Technology is confusing.”
We exchanged wry smiles and drank water from bottles offered by FireWind. The water wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t hot either.
“You got any idea how the man drove the truck? The man who tried to kill me? That’s magic, not electronics. And I still do
n’t understand.”
“No. T. Laine is working on discovering how it was accomplished. The four members of the local coven who helped on scene are joining her. They are all quite curious. One of them used the term homunculus.”
I looked that up to discover that it was a small, artificially produced human sometimes grown in a flask. A manikin. Which made no sense at all, when looking at two dead men driving trucks.
“Of course, they also used the term zombie. They were brainstorming.”
A black Lexus passed us, pulled into the Merriweathers’ drive, and parked. A long, lean woman in a pencil-thin black suit got out and adjusted her sunglasses, staring at us. The stare went on a little too long before she strode to the house and entered.
“Interesting,” FireWind said. And I had a feeling his interesting was of a sexual nature rather than an intellectual nature. FireWind liked strong women. And that was interesting to me. In a strictly intellectual capacity, of course. FireWind put a tiny device behind his ear and pressed an even smaller earpiece inside his ear canal. He said, “Testing. Do you copy? Excellent.” He looked at me. “We have intel backup with Jones at HQ. If anything needs to be verified or researched on the fly, she will be able to do so.”
More minutes passed. As we sat, a car pulled up behind us and parked. I had thought Occam was hyperaware, but my cat-man had nothing on FireWind, who went from relaxed to holding a weapon in about a quarter second. His eyes were on his rearview and the weapon vanished just as fast. I blinked, uncertain what I had just seen. “LaFleur,” he said to me, casually, as if he hadn’t just done a magician’s parlor trick. He glanced at me and that almost-smile lit his face again and was gone as he turned off the car and reached for the door handle.
“You’re playing games with me, ain’tcha?”
My boss halted his motion and turned his yellow eyes on me, an odd expression on his face. “Yes. I suppose I am. Oddly, I feel quite comfortable with you. I know that if I overstep my bounds you will tell me to my face.” He breathed out through his nose, a short, sharp sound. “You remind me of my wife that way. She was a straight-speaking, strong woman too. So few people speak their minds, men or women. In another time and place, you and I might have been good friends.”
“Ain’t no reason we can’t be friends now,” I said, opening my door. “As long as we both remember there are specific boundaries on that friendship. Meaning that you can and will fire me if I mess up, and that I can’t speak my mind in front of other people.” I stopped, my legs and feet swiveled around to the grass where we had parked, my back to him. “Frankly I find that one sorta hard.”
I had the pleasure of hearing FireWind’s laughter as I stood and closed my door. Rick and Margot were already standing in the street and the looks they sent me, at the sound of FireWind’s laughter, were priceless. I just shrugged, but I was sorta proud of making the big boss laugh. I had a feeling he didn’t do that often.
Rick looked good, better than I had seen him in a long time, since I had helped to heal him of supernatural bindings. He stood tall and straight, and had put on weight that he sorely needed, in his shoulders and back and thighs. He had been working out. His white hair blew in the afternoon breeze, too long for regs, nearly at his collar. He looked older than before his trauma, but he had the perfect skin of a were-creature. Rick LaFleur was chick candy. Or maybe it was a chick magnet? One of those words. And he and Margot looked good together. Not romantic or as if they were in a relationship, but comfortable, which was good, since they were still dealing with the results of Margot becoming a black wereleopard in a freak shooting accident.
“Boss,” I said softly.
“Nell,” he said with a half smile. “I hear you’ve been doing good work.”
A flush warmed my face, any color change hidden behind my tree-bark-toned skin. To cover my self-conscious reaction, I said, “Thanks. Full moon’s coming in a few days. You two planning to hunt on my land?”
“If you and Soulwood permit. There’s no finer hunting ground in the world.”
I ducked my head in pleasure.
Rick turned his attention to our up-line boss.
“FireWind.”
“LaFleur. You wrapped that case up quickly. No bloodshed, no collateral damage.”
The four of us stood in the sun while the two male senior agents talked about the Chattanooga case, their backs to the Merriweather house. Margot and I were facing the house, standing side by side, listening, and I took the opportunity to study the probationary special agent. Margot Racer, formerly a special agent in the FBI, exuded self-assurance, a confidence I had never seen in women, especially not in any churchwomen. Her shoulders were back, her chin up, her eyes narrowed. Her dark skin glistened in the sunlight as if it was dusted with gold dust, and her buzzed short hair looked elegant and tough at once. She looked badass, a word I never associated with females but that certainly fit her. And fit Esther, though in a very different way. I would never be badass.
As I had hoped, some time spent with Rick, also a wereleopard, had helped Margot adjust to the loss of her humanity and the acquisition of a furry body during the full moon. When she and Rick had left for the case in Chattanooga, she had been grieving, often staring out the window, one arm hugging across herself, the other hanging to her side, too limp, her posture desultory. Grieving.
Grief was like living inside a weighted net, pulling you down. You could see out but not get away, not breathe freely, not . . . not live the life you once lived. I had grieved like that when Leah died, Leah who had been John’s first wife and my friend. And then John had died. And though there had been no romantic love between us, I had grieved his loss as well. And I had been alone. I hadn’t known how to help Margot, how to untangle the threads that trapped her, how to set her free, but the time spent with Rick had gone a long way to healing.
It made me want to cheer to see her back to her old self. Margot might be a probationary agent in PsyLED, but she would never be viewed by her coworkers as a probationary anything. Watching Margot, I stood straighter, as if a chain hauled the top of my head up several inches. I tilted my chin high. Narrowed my eyes. The posture changes made me feel more in control.
We were a strange grouping, confident Margot Racer with her glowing dark skin and elegant business suit, Rick LaFleur with his navy jacket and pants, black eyes, and startling white hair, and FireWind with his yellow eyes, black clothing, and long black braid. And ordinary-looking me with my fading red hair, greenish eyes, and clothes from Target. Even with my shoulders back I knew I looked dowdy standing next to the others. It wasn’t a feeling I particularly liked.
I wondered if the churchwomen could make me some elegant suits. The thought was shocking. An almost violent collision between my two worlds.
At the house, the black-suited woman opened the door and stared us down. She didn’t motion us forward so much as simply stand there and study us. I figured it was a power play of some sort. My stride long and sure, I walked around the jabbering men and up the walkway. I didn’t look back, but I could feel them start after me. As I moved up the walk, I studied the lawyer, because that was surely what I faced. She was lean and muscular and exuded the same kind of power that Margot did.
I smiled a churchwoman smile as I walked up the three short steps, flipped open my ID, and turned on just a smidge of my church accent, along with a big smile. “Hey. I’m Special Agent Nell Ingram. I thank you for coming to protect the identity and juvenile record of your client. She’ll need you.”
The lawyer blinked in surprise. Point to me. She didn’t know her client had once had another name and a juvenile criminal record.
I felt the others step onto the small porch behind me, and the lawyer, who regrouped quickly, said, “I’m Dominique Goode, Mrs. Merriweather’s attorney. I understand that you do not have a warrant?”
“No, ma’am,” I said, still churchy. “We’d rather not
intrude too much on Mrs. Merriweather’s life, and acquiring a warrant would make this public record instead of a nice private chat. She has a new name and a new reputation to uphold, after all.”
The lawyer’s expression didn’t change at all this time, but I knew, just knew, that she hadn’t known, still didn’t know, about her client’s past. I resisted looking at Margot to see if she had picked up on anything.
Goode said, “I advised my client against this interview, but you may come in. You may have half an hour of her time. You may ask questions. She may or may not respond. In most circumstances, I will be speaking for my client. There may be questions she does not wish to answer, and she will not do so. Is all this understood?”
“Pretty much,” I said, stepping over the threshold. The client was standing in the hallway in a dim corner, a curvy, more mature version of the out-of-focus girl from the poly wedding and the photos of group sex. Her face looked fierce and tense and . . . guilty. No one had said I was lead on this interview, but I continued anyway. “But honestly, how can you answer any questions when you got no earthly idea about her name change and her juvenile criminal record?”
Racine/Cadence Merriweather went pale at my words and backed into the far room before she turned and ran down a hallway.
Ms. Goode stared me down. I smiled sweetly back at her. She pointed down the wide foyer hallway and said, “Sit. Do not roam.” She followed her client.
I went down the hallway and into the main room. While the three other special agents gathered together and spoke in low voices, I looked around. The main room had ten-foot-tall ceilings with crisscrossed moldings all over, what they called coffered ceilings. The ceilings, moldings, and walls were painted in three warm neutral tones that were reflected in the couches and the chairs. There were hardwood floors everywhere I could see and fancy rugs. The décor was kept from being boring by a threadbare Persian-type rug that was probably ancient and expensive. To me it just looked as if it needed to be replaced. Despite its age, it was a pretty shade of faded fuchsia pink with mint green and pale blue, the deep pink tint picked up by throw pillows and two small chairs.