Aside from the circle, a small table was built into one of the walls, and upon it sat a few tools and bowls, likely for mixing spell ingredients.
“Welcome,” Natalie said, dryly. “Couldn’t wait in the living room for me, could you?”
I felt heat rising up my neck, even though I wasn’t responsible for our presence here.
“Patience is not among my virtues,” Claude replied in the same tone.
For some reason, their good-natured ribbing made me almost as uncomfortable as being in a Covenant witch’s casting room without her permission or invitation.
“This is quite a casting room,” I said.
A small smile crept onto her mouth, and she gave up her attempt to appear angry with Claude.
“Thank you. It’s taken me a while to build it.” She walked to the table, grabbed the brand from behind a bowl, and flashed it at us. “Let’s continue this discussion in the living room, shall we?”
We followed Natalie to the kitchen, a large room that was cut off from the rest of the living space, to pick up tea on our way to the living room. I distracted myself by looking at her crown moldings in an effort not to say something rude, like hurry up and tell us already. Claude revealed no impatience in his laid-back attitude and easy smile.
His attitude changed the second Natalie told us her findings.
“What do you mean, nothing?” he asked, voice strained.
“Nothing to indicate the brand was psychically altered, other than the cleaning, which as you know didn’t remove the psychometric imprints. At least not completely,” Natalie said, the diminutive woman not the least bit rattled by Claude’s obvious shock.
Claude sank onto Natalie’s couch and rubbed his face with his hands. “That isn’t possible.”
I’d never thought I’d hear a man like Claude Desmarais with desperation on his tongue, even just a hint, and I didn’t like it. “There could be an explanation, Claude.”
He looked up at me and the hope in his gaze twisted my heart.
“I’m not saying that it’s likely—his face coming up in the initial vision means he definitely made an impression on the victim. But we don’t know exactly what happened. I need more time with the brand.” I glanced at Natalie and she offered me a small smile. “I could even start now.”
Natalie set down the brand on the coffee table. “I’ll just get us some drinks, then. Dealing with murders is a bit easier with alcohol. Scotch for you, Claude?”
He nodded without looking at her, his attention locked on the brand.
“Agent Davis?”
I opened my mouth to tell her I’d take a soda, but changed my mind. If I was going to handle that brand before we left, I’d need a drink after. “Beer if you have it.” Hell, what time was it? Noon, maybe? My psychologist would love this—it would open up a whole new can of worms.
“Remember to keep an open mind?” I didn’t mean for it to be a question, but my tone lilted anyway. I wanted to go and give Claude a hug, a kiss, offer him comfort. God, I was a world-class masochist.
He nodded, offering me a grateful smile. I sat on one of the oversized chairs that surrounded the coffee table and hyperventilated. Then I gestured toward the brand. Claude picked it up and held it out to me.
“Thank you,” he said softly, then dropped the brand into my outstretched hand.
Fear rolled over me, filling my throat with bile. Luc Chevalier’s face flashed, and it intermingled with the branding iron in a most disturbing way. He was yelling something—silent to my ears—and another man came into view. The background was clouded, but I thought I could make out earth beneath my feet. I tore my gaze away, trying to drag it back to the men. But it caught on my arm. On my hand.
On my webbed fingers and graying hand. No, not graying. But touched with fur.
I heard the bang of the brand hitting the floor, and I forced air into my lungs. I blinked away the black spots that pinged my vision. My hand came into focus first, curled like a claw forced open. A defense mechanism that psychometrists’ bodies seemed to act out instinctually. One that kept us from recycling through visions, in case we couldn’t muster the wherewithal to drop the object during the brief moments between images.
My hand, what was it about my hand?
The vision rushed back, bits and pieces that made no sense. My mind struggled to force them into a linear time line, into some kind of order. A square peg and a round hole, unfortunately.
Someone gripped my arm; I could feel that much again. And I blinked dumbly at Claude for a couple of seconds. The situation rushed back to me and I pulled away, averting my eyes from the strangely concerned expression on his face.
Natalie set a beer on the table in front of me and then reached down and retrieved the brand from where I’d dropped it on her floor. I wondered if she’d seen me. Psychometry visions weren’t pretty things, although I mostly sat stiffly without breathing, or so I was told. And I guessed that wasn’t so bad.
“A selkie.”
“What?” Claude hadn’t moved from where he kneeled next to me, although he kept his hands to himself since I’d pulled away.
“The man who imprinted on that brand. He was a selkie. I saw his hand tied down.” I touched my own hand, my mind still half expecting to see it changing from a human to a seal. “Webbed fingers—fur just peeking through.”
“He was kept in mid-transformation?” Natalie asked.
I shook my head, then regretted the motion as pain shot through my skull. “Not necessarily. Imprints aren’t linear, and they aren’t perfect. It could be that he shifted entirely, but that the psychic imprint happened during the shift.”
“Wow. How do you ever figure out anything useful from your visions?” Natalie asked.
I flinched.
“Apparently she does just fine, Natalie. Have you seen her closure rate?” Claude cut in.
I stared at the vampire. He hadn’t just come to me because of my reputation and our history—he’d done some serious digging beforehand. Not that it wasn’t a reasonable step—a smart move, for an investigator. No wonder he’d known I was on medical leave.
The small part of me that hoped he’d come because he’d felt a connection to me withered.
And despite my anger at myself for even entertaining such an idea, it was disappointing.
Natalie looked embarrassed, and she shouldn’t have. Sure, her comment wasn’t tactful, but she hadn’t intended any harm. Hell, I was surprised myself when I was able to get a particularly confusing vision to make sense eventually.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it,” I said to Natalie. I couldn’t deal with Claude right now. Our kiss was too fresh, and it tugged on very old wounds that I didn’t have the strength or the gumption to open right now. “Truth is, psychometrists don’t always find useful evidence from visions, and we can’t always make sense of them.” I picked up the beer and took a long drink, then coughed a little. The dark beer was a little stronger than what I normally drank. “Like the vamp said, I usually do come up with something helpful. But not with just one vision. Or two. Usually, it takes a week or two of consistent visions to make any sense out of them.”
“That sounds…unpleasant.”
I forced a smile. “It’s fine.”
Natalie still seemed embarrassed, but she also seemed as intent to forget it as I was. “So where does this leave you?” she asked Claude.
The heat of his gaze hit me for a brief moment, then his eyes were back on Natalie. “I’ve been told I need to be more open-minded. I suppose an open-minded person might start digging through police files.”
I took another drink of the beer to hide my smile from the vampire and the witch.
“You gave me selkie with ‘man hands.’ There are only two adult male selkies who have disappeared in the last fifteen years in the area. The most recent was investigated by the succubus, Marisol. Talking to her is safer than digging through the file. Requesting it will leave a trace.”
“Yadda yadda.
I got it. No trace, no one putting two and two together.” We walked between the short granite columns that protected the building from car bombs and angry drivers. I blew a puff of warm air into my hands. So damn cold.
We walked through the revolving doors into the courthouse, pausing briefly to get through security, before cutting through the marble-lined halls to make our way to the cafeteria. I was already uncomfortable and we hadn’t even seen her yet. “Are you sure we should be bothering her?”
“Marisol’s in court all week for a case. She has to eat, right?”
Claude cut through the crowd to a small table in the back. The succubus took my breath away. Succubi had that effect on people. That I suddenly felt like a jerk wasn’t succubus related.
I had never made such an ass of myself as I had toward Marisol Whitman. Granted, she’d forgiven me after I’d been a total bitch when I found her and my ex-partner in bed together, but I still felt like an ass every time I saw her. But she was a good cop, and my bad behavior in the past and discomfort in the present wasn’t good enough reason to avoid talking to her about this case.
Claude pulled out the chair next to me, directly across from Marisol.
“You sounded so mysterious on the phone.” Marisol leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.
“I have to sound mysterious. How will I keep my reputation intact if I don’t?” Claude smiled, but worry prevented his eyes from following suit. “I just have some questions about an old case you were on. Might be nothing, but I need to keep this between the three of us for now.”
Marisol frowned. “All right. What case?”
“A selkie disappeared last year, a man named Lawrence Coates.”
“Oh, yes. I remember the case. Took two days for the family to even tell us he was a selkie. Case was turned over to the PNU then.”
“What else can you tell us about it?”
She shrugged, perfect shoulders sliding under her long, blond hair. “Not much to tell. Not a local, but had some business in the area. His wife called it in when he never went back to their hotel after a dinner meeting. He was some kind of big player in selkie politics. That’s why they were so concerned about letting his otherworlder status out.”
I started. “I didn’t even realize selkies were organized enough for politics.”
“You and me both. But there are a lot of them, so I guess it makes sense. We just don’t see them much here since we’re so far from the ocean.”
“Selkies have very little hierarchy,” Claude said. “Only the royal family is considered above the others. You must have had some sort of selkie prince on your hands.”
“Wait, what? Selkies have a royal family?”
I was glad that Marisol voiced the question, so I didn’t have to. I’d never heard of such a thing.
“It’s not common knowledge.” Claude grimaced. “It’s not even uncommon knowledge, and the selkies would prefer to keep it that way, if you don’t mind.”
“How do you—” I started at the same time as Marisol said, “Is that even possible?”
He glanced at me. “I saved a selkie royal from a rogue vamp a while back.” He turned back to Marisol. “It is possible. So tell us the rest. Did you ever figure out what happened to him? Did you ever find a body?”
It was Marisol’s turn to look startled. “A body? No. He didn’t die. He showed up a week later—really pissed off that we were looking for him.”
I suppressed a sigh. A selkie who hadn’t actually disappeared. What a waste of time.
“Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to us,” I said, then stopped as Claude held up his hand.
“Give us a rundown.”
I shot him the stink eye. Seriously?
“All right,” Marisol said, as she leaned back in her chair and tapped her chin. “Wife called the cops in the middle of the first night when he hadn’t shown up after a dinner meeting. They explained that he wasn’t technically missing yet. At some point—the next morning, I think—she showed up at the station, demanding help. Duty cop took pity on her and let her talk to a detective. They started on the investigation unofficially after that. It became official after he’d been gone long enough.”
“How long was he gone before he came back?” Claude asked.
“A week.”
“And his explanation for taking off like that?”
“He didn’t really give one. And honestly, as an adult, he can take off on his wife if he really wants to. Nothing illegal about that.”
“You think he was stepping out on her? That’s where he was that week?” I cut in. If that was the case, this trip really had been a waste of time.
“Can’t say for sure, although he insinuated as much the second his wife left the room. But…” She shook her head.
“What is it?” Claude leaned forward, a hunter scenting prey. He knew when blood hit the water.
“Well, it was just a gut feeling, but something was off about how he answered our questions. Like he really didn’t want us to ask about that week, and was angry about the whole thing. And he just seemed a little…”
“What?”
“Off, I guess. Sorry I can’t be more specific, but he shut us down pretty quickly.” She brushed her long hair back from her face.
Claude grimaced again and leaned back on his chair.
“I wish I could tell you more, but the man was an adult. We had no crime to hold him for. No reason to continue questioning him after he was done talking to us.”
“Well, thanks for the info.” Claude stood. “We’ll let you eat your lunch.”
We headed out of the cafeteria and Claude had his cell phone in hand before we hit the parking lot, running down the selkie’s name with who knew what kind of shady contact.
“Want to go for a drive?” he asked without preamble after shoving his cell phone back in his pocket. He didn’t wait for my reply. “Lawrence Coates is in Milwaukee right now. Let’s go talk to that selkie about where the hell he was during that missing week.”
Chapter Seven
“You seemed tense around Marisol.” We’d made it out of the northernmost burbs before he asked. Just long enough of a drive for me to relax.
“I acted like a jerk to her a while back, one of my more brilliant moments in life. It’s not a big deal.”
“You’re too tense for it not to be a big deal.”
“You’ve gone through my file. I’m sure you know that my ex-partner is now living here, with her.” Admitting to Claude how I’d acted was almost as uncomfortable as talking to Marisol. “He was still my partner when they started dating, and I didn’t handle it well. I acted like a jealous girlfriend.”
He shrugged, tips of his longish hair brushing his collar. “I just…”
“What?” Irritation flared inside of me. Between the case and Claude’s kiss and having to see Marisol, I was running on a short fuse. Why’d the man have to poke at all of my sore spots during the same week?
“Did you have feelings for him—her boyfriend, your ex-partner? I mean, were you two involved?” His expression had hardened, and the skin around his eyes crinkled as if he cared about my answer.
“Yes. And no.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.” I rubbed my face with my hands. “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, I have feelings for my ex-partner.” I could see his grip tighten even more. Pretty soon the damn steering wheel would bend. “Not romantic feelings, if that’s what you’re getting at. Friend feelings. Partner feelings.”
His grip loosened and he stroked the wheel as if apologizing silently for assaulting it. “So you weren’t involved with him.”
“No. I was never involved with him. I was just really rude to Marisol once, and I still feel like a jerk every time I’m around her,” I grumbled.
A smile touched his lips and he reached for the stereo’s volume. “Good.”
I stared at him, but before I could form a reply to that, he turned up the volume and an old Journey song filled the air. Fine. Whatever. I didn’t want to explore why he thought that was good.
“That doesn’t mean I’m interested in anything other than working with you on this case,” I said loudly.
He gave me a striking grin, his eyes merry and full of confidence. “I’ll just have to convince you.”
My breath caught and I turned to watch the snow-covered ground fly by outside my window. I didn’t have a good response for that, and was determined he wouldn’t see the blush he’d caused.
After ten minutes or so of awkward silence, we passed the rest of the trip to Milwaukee with idle chatter. Claude acted happy enough to talk about unimportant subjects, but his mind seemed to be on other things. As was mine. I tried to push down the antsy feeling that always hit me when I entered this city. I wasn’t going to my parents’ house. No one was going to lecture me for days, urging me to quit my job. I needed to keep my mind on the case.
How long could I let this investigation go on without pushing to interview Luc? Without pushing Claude to acknowledge that his friend was dirty?
I glanced at the vampire. His concentration was now focused on locating the right address down the winding road outside of Wisconsin’s beer destination. Worry creased his mouth, but he had the same strong jawline as I remembered. The same shining hair and the same full lips.
I wondered if I looked the same to him, or if he saw the subtle way the years had touched my skin.
Not that it mattered.
Claude parked the car in front of a sprawling two-story, more mansion than house. With a circular drive, small windows revealing the second story, and marble columns around the front door, the Georgian style wasn’t to my personal taste, but it was pretty. And the place probably cost more than I’d make in my lifetime.
“Is he expecting us?”
Claude grinned. “Nope.”
The woman who answered the door didn’t seem surprised to see us, until Claude flashed his badge and asked to see Lawrence Coates. I couldn’t read her physically like Claude could, but there was a certain wariness around her eyes when she stepped back to allow us entry.
Vampire Games (Entangled Ever After) Page 6