by Mia Marshall
“The feeling’s mutual,” I assured him. “It looks like a few things changed around here since my last visit,” I glanced at his wife, who had returned to the kitchen with a stack of clothes in hand. She shook them out, and I saw that they were two aprons.
“Anyone who comes to this house is family,” she informed us. “We need four dozen Easter cookies ready for tomorrow, and family would help with that, wouldn’t they?” Mac and I dumbly agreed. “Wonderful. Half bunnies and half chicks, please.” She handed us each an apron. Mine was a black and white cow pattern. Mac’s was pink and read, “It’s not easy being a princess,” in a large, sparkly font. He put it on without batting an eye.
“Thank you, Ellie darling. I’ll put them right to work. Now, I’m afraid these two have come to discuss some terribly dull business that you should avoid at all costs.”
She looked at us, her expression mock stern. “I give you an hour. No more. It’s his day off, you know.” Although her tone was light and her eyes continued to sparkle, I knew she meant every word. She left the room, humming happily to herself, and a moment later we heard the sounds of the vacuum running down the hallway.
He watched her leave, an unabashed smile on his face. “Isn’t she grand? I am a lucky man. Not many get a chance at love as late as I did. She didn’t even panic when I told her what I was. She’s human, you know.”
I was surprised. Most elementals kept the secret of their existence to themselves, but over the years a few show-offs and besotted fools had told the humans. It was highly discouraged, of course, and those that trusted indiscreet humans often paid a steep price. Many were shunned by their families for decades, or at least until enough time passed that the elementals were distracted by a new scandal. If the human went public, it was worse. They didn’t just get a valid excuse to avoid the next several family gatherings—they’d be ostracized, indefinitely, by all elementals who learned of their mistake. It spoke volumes about Stephen’s devotion to his wife that he so freely admitted her knowledge of what we were.
Also, he’d spoken of his wife’s humanity without a hint of rancor or apology. If this man felt any abhorrence for non-elementals—particularly those that mingled with elementals—he’d devised a most ingenious cover.
I realized he’d also spoken quite openly in front of Mac. “You know Mac’s not human, then?” How had everyone but me known about shifters? My ignorance was getting embarrassing.
“Of course. I’ve worked crime scenes in the greater Tahoe area for thirty years now. Hard to stay ignorant for that length of time.” He turned to Mac. “Not all of yours behave themselves, you know. Roll that out, would you?” he asked, indicating a cutting board covered with yellow dough.
Mac quietly replied, “Not all of any people behave themselves.” While he spoke, he grabbed the rolling pin and started awkwardly flattening the dough into a lumpy mass.
“Fair enough, fair enough. I can’t say suffocation by earth is any less brutal than a claw swipe that nearly removes a man’s leg. Both are horrible ways to go. No, use the baby chick cookie cutter, not the chicken one. And this elemental roaming the area is bad news. I know I need to find him, and I’m looking, but I can’t help hoping we never meet. The man is dangerous.”
That was my opening. “I’m sure Brian told you why we’re here. We know you’re the only elemental on the force. You guys can’t handle this, and you shouldn’t have to. We’re looking at finding him ourselves. Josiah Blais is helping, of course.”
Stephen nodded slowly. “I’m glad we have Blais on our side. We need that kind of power. And I remember you and Sera well. The two of you were walking, talking bundles of pure energy. I can’t imagine there’s anything you can’t do, you put your mind to it. So tell me, why are you here? How can I help?”
I outlined our belief that the current killer was somehow related to the previous killings. I was finding it hard to treat him as a suspect. Even Mac wasn’t throwing any suspicious glances his way. He was more focused on scraping distorted, uneven chicks off the cutting board than in urging me to be cautious with what I shared. Besides, most of my knowledge was shared by the killer, so I wasn’t concerned I was giving away too much. To be safe, I only glossed over Sera’s and my involvement in the fire—after all, he was still a cop—but the shrewd eyes peering at me let me know he heard a lot more than I was willing to say.
“So, that’s where we stand at the moment. We need to know whether there were really three or four bodies in that fire. You signed the report that said there were four, and we want to confirm that with you.”
While I spoke, he lifted small bunnies from the cooling rack to a tin. He was relaxed throughout the story, and didn’t interrupt me once, but my final words brought him sputtering to life. “Four? Nonsense. Let me see that report.” I dug my newly acquired cell phone out of my purse. After a few awkward minutes touching the screen, I finally stumbled on the correct sequence to pull up the file Vivian had forwarded. I’d grown up on an island surrounded by people whose very auras were made of magic, and this tiny, wireless computer felt like the most mystical thing I’d ever seen. I gingerly held it out for him, and Stephen peered intently at the screen. “Can you make it bigger? That’s better. Yeah, that’s my signature, all right. And it does say four, though that doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s not like you can make a simple typo to get from three to four. We write numbers out just to avoid this kind of mistake.”
He was clearly agitated. When we’d entered the room, he’d been chipper and comfortably domestic. Now, he looked like a cop, one who was more than willing to chase down the person responsible for this mistake.
“Damn. This better not have been me. Sure, my mind wanders sometimes, but not so much that I can’t remember how many dead people I saw the night before. I don’t know what to tell you, Aidan dear. I remember that night clear as can be. I was the one who told Amanda’s parents about their daughter’s death. And I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that there were only three bodies in that warehouse.”
The ride back was silent for several miles. I was digesting the information, and I suspected Mac was still digesting the bunny cookies Mrs Grant had pushed on us when she finally deemed our kitchen duties complete.
Suddenly, I was done digesting. “Pull over. Pull over. Now!”
Mac looked at me, startled, then eased the Bronco to the side of the road. Before it fully stopped, I was out of the car and tearing through the trees, heading for the river I could feel a couple hundred feet ahead. Minutes later, he found me, waist deep in the freezing water. It was all runoff from the mountain snow, but I didn’t even feel the cold. I just needed the comfort of my element. I needed to feel the water’s power seeping into every pore. I needed to feel whole.
Mac stood, watching me, waiting for an explanation. I didn’t want to give him one. I didn’t want to say the words out loud, lest they become even more real than they already were.
Instead, I sank fully into the water, immersing myself. My knees bent, and my long hair floated around my face. The river flowed quickly, so quickly. It would have been dangerous for anyone else, but not me. I knew this water, and I loved it as it loved me. While the rest of the river rushed eagerly downstream, impatient to reach the lake, close to me it whispered quietly, circling me and holding me still in its sure embrace. I breathed it in, the smell of the water, and ran my hands through its currents. The spray tickled my face, greeting me, telling me that it had been too long since I had last visited. I found the purity at the heart of the river and absorbed it into my very soul.
I heard Mac leaving. I didn’t open my eyes, and not when I heard him return, either. I remained in the water, seeking balance.
Minutes later, I finally climbed onto the river bank. Once I was out of the river and standing in the frigid air, I felt the chill for the first time. Mac handed me a blanket and a spare flannel shirt he must have found in his car. Without saying a word, he turned his back to me and studied a branch on a nearby tre
e with great interest, giving me the privacy I needed.
I stripped out of my wet clothes, shivering the whole time. The shirt smelled lightly of Mac, a soft musky scent, but it was otherwise clean. As tall as I was, it still nearly fell to my knees, looking like the least fashionable shirtdress ever. I wrapped myself in the blanket and sat on a nearby rock. “You can turn around now,” I said quietly.
He did, but didn’t move any closer. Instead, he leaned against a pine tree, crossed his arms and merely waited. He did not appear the slightest bit impatient. He could wait for hours, if that’s how long it took.
“He’s alive,” I said. Mac continued to say nothing. I was stating the obvious, so his agreement was unnecessary. He seemed to know that. I repeated, “He’s alive. I’ve spent the last ten years hating myself for what we’ve done, and the only thing that made it slightly bearable was the belief that the three deaths weren’t completely meaningless. Horrible, inexcusable, but not meaningless. Because of the fires, because of the lack of control, I thought we’d killed him. He was supposed to be dead,” I stated. Before me, the river roiled and churned, echoing my anger.
“If he’s not dead, how do I live with myself? How do I live with what I did? I killed three people, and he lived. He lived, and then he killed—or helped kill, it doesn’t matter—a friend I love dearly. I did everything wrong, and now Chris and Mark and all the rest are paying the price.” The water, sensing the slow shift from anger to despair, slid up the bank, wrapping around my bare feet in a consoling motion. “He’s getting away with it, and he’s laughing at us. He’s having a grand old time, while I still have nightmares and live in fear that my lack of control will hurt someone else.”
Mac gestured to the water, still curled around my feet. “That doesn’t look like lack of control to me.”
“This isn’t control. It’s the water responding to me, to my emotions. It’s just what happens.”
“Can you control it now?”
I easily pulled a strand of water to my hand, creating a reverse waterfall between my fingers and the river. It was child’s play, the sort of thing I did all the time at my house.
“But you’re having strong emotions right now. I thought that’s what got in the way of your control.”
I mulled over his words. “I’m miserable, yes. I’m horrified. But I’m not scared.” Once I said the words, it all seemed painfully obvious, something I should have realized long ago. “I was always scared before, when I had trouble. Scared of people dying, scared of the killer, scared of never getting the answers I needed, scared of Vivian learning things I didn’t want anyone to know. Sometimes I was just plain scared of losing control.”
“Well, that’s easy then,” said Mac. “We just need to make you fearless. I could shout ‘boo’ at you at random moments until you no longer jump.” It was a joke, but he didn’t really mean it. He took this seriously.
“We could have a Friday the 13th and Halloween marathon,” I suggested.
“With big pots of water instead of popcorn,” he added. I tried to smile, with little success. “Look, Aidan, I know I wasn’t there. I don’t know what it was like. And I only met you a short time ago, but I still know you’re not the sort of person who would let another burn to death. You told the guard not to go inside the building. You were there in an effort to save Amanda, not to kill her. And let’s be clear: you didn’t kill her. He did. He would have killed her whether you were there or not, because unlike you, he enjoys killing.”
I’d told myself these same things countless times, trying to believe them. I never did. It seemed wrong that this near-stranger’s words carried more weight than my own voice, but somehow his assurances felt more reliable than my own attempts to assuage my guilt. He was attempting to absolve me of my crimes, and I dearly wanted to let him, except for one thing.
“Even if all that is true—and it probably is,” I added, because he looked like he planned to object, “there was still the third man. A man who was completely uninvolved in our attempts to catch the killer and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sera and I decided to be badass heroes, a role we’d never played before. We had no idea what we were doing, not really, but we were both too freaking stubborn to admit we were in over our heads. Our attitude, our arrogance, cost him his life. If we hadn’t been there, he’d still be alive today. If I hadn’t let the fire burn, hadn’t waited to enter the room, he’d still be alive.”
“Maybe. Maybe the killer knew he was there, and wouldn’t have let him live. Maybe he would have drunk himself to death a week later, or maybe he would have turned his life around and found a job and home by now. We’ll never know. No matter how much you dwell on it, no matter how much you beat yourself up, you’ll never have the answer and you’ll never change what happened. All you can do is let it go.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. He was alone. If I don’t mourn him, if I don’t remember him, who will? He was alone,” I repeated. “They never even learned his name. He died a John Doe. If I forgive myself, if I let his memory fade, it will be like he never existed. I can’t just let it go.”
“I’m not saying to forget. You’ll never forget, and that’s the way it should be. Let yourself remember. Light a candle for him on the night of his death. Say a prayer for his soul, if that’s what you believe. Donate money to homeless organizations in his name, any name you choose. Let him be a part of you, because he’s already there. But you’ve been hiding from the world and from your life because of a horrible, terrible accident. Your life is no more than a shadow of what it should be. You need to forgive yourself and move on. Remember him, but remember yourself, too. Just... try.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have the words. Driving home from the fire, Sera had repeated, over and over again, that it was an accident, but I hadn’t believed her. I thought she was only trying to exonerate herself, and maybe she was. Hearing the words emerging from Mac’s lips felt like a new language, one I had forgotten how to speak: the language of forgiveness. He was asking just one thing of me, that I try, and it almost sounded like a reasonable request. Slowly, hesitantly, I gave him the smallest of nods.
Finally, he walked toward me, bridging the distance between us with long, sure strides. Crouching, he gathered my wet clothes into a plastic bag, and then, without warning, he swooped me into his arms, holding me easily. I squeaked in startled protest. “Lots of rocks and fallen branches on the path back to the car,” he explained. “You would tear up your feet, and we’ve got to keep you in fighting shape. We’ve still got some bad guys to chase.” Even though his grip was solid and sure, I grabbed onto his shoulders for support and let him carry me for a bit.
Chapter 14
That night, the teddy bear fortress was a somber place, the easy relaxation of the last couple days replaced by tension and an almost tangible sense of hopelessness. The others had arrived home before us and were watching and re-watching the surveillance video, trying to find any clues they’d missed on the previous fifty views. When we entered the room, eyebrows rose at the sight of me in a man’s flannel shirt and nothing else, but no one said a word, not even Sera. Brian had a rare frown on his face, the events of the day obviously taking their toll. I changed and rushed back downstairs, wanting to offer any comfort I could.
When I returned, Brian was standing several feet behind the others, looking so alone it broke my heart. I stepped behind him and slid my hands around his chest, giving him a light hug. “He’s innocent,” I whispered. “I’m sure of it. And we’re going to find this asshole, okay?” He covered my hands with his own and squeezed, a silent thank you.
We caught each other up on our findings of the day. Their half of the bloodhound gang had been forced to eliminate the convict from our list of suspects. While he was a possible physical match, he also had such a low IQ it was a wonder he wasn’t listed as developmentally disabled. There was no way the man could be a criminal mastermind, they all agreed. Vivian had reviewed the list of parolees
a second time and found several worth investigating. The three of them were going out again the next day, but no one was feeling particularly optimistic. It was a long shot, and we all knew it.
“We still don’t know what happened with the police report,” I said. “There could be an accomplice on the force.”
“A human accomplice?” snorted Brian. “I’ll look into it, but for now I think we have to assume that my uncle was having a senior moment. Never tell him I said that.”
I shook my head. It seemed unlikely that Stephen Grant had ever had a senior moment in his life. It was a dissatisfying answer, but also the most likely. Faced with nothing but a slew of improbabilities, one had to be accepted as slightly more probable than the others. “Occam’s Razor,” I said.
“The who in the what now?” asked Sera.
“It’s the principle that, all other things being equal, the simplest explanation is often the correct one. We have two separate killers. Both are still alive, and they seem to be working together. And Stephen Grant made a mistake on his report.”
“A pretty big freaking mistake,” noted Mac.
Brian nodded. “Now we have to figure out how to track down two homicidal elementals, when we weren’t exactly having much luck with one.” He moved to the kitchen and began rustling through the cupboards. “There is not enough alcohol in the house to deal with today.”
Sera stood in one easy motion and began to pace across a small section of carpet, twisting her hands together and muttering to herself. I knew from experience that this thought process could take hours, so I grabbed an empty notebook out of my purse and began to make notes.
The moment the pen touched the paper, the words flowed easily, the day’s events finding their way onto the page in my neat, slanted script. When Brian returned with a tray full of glasses, I quietly took a drink but continued to write, recalling details I had nearly forgotten and articulating my frustrations.