“I’m vegan, actually.”
The menu fluttered to the floor. “Oh. Magistrate Vause. Hi.”
“May I?” Her gaze tagged the micro seating area opposite my rumpled bed. “We didn’t get a chance to speak before you left.”
“Sure.” Feeling contrite, I nudged the door wider. “Come on in.”
One of her guards barged past me and performed a sweep of the area. He reappeared in seconds and all but snapped his heels together. “It’s clear.”
Magistrate Vause wrinkled her nose but crossed the threshold. The second guard closed the door behind her and, I assume, took point guarding the room from the hall.
“This will have to do.” She flicked her wrist toward the pleather sofa. “Fionn?”
The guard swept his fingers through the air and withdrew a packet of moist towelettes from nowhere. Under her watchful eyes, he wiped down the seat, the back and arm. Then he used the same trick to summon a dry cloth to finish the job. Once done he tossed them in the tiny waste bin next to the desk with a wobbly leg. The others were stuffed back into the same invisible seam where he had retrieved them.
“What brings you by so late?” She struck me as the sort to be in her silk pajamas by eight p.m. sharp. I rushed to add, “Not that I mind the visit.”
Fake leather creaked when she sat. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.” She must have read my doubt. “I also have not received your report on the incident in Wink.”
“I’m working on it now.” I scooped up the menu before I could step on it and slip. “The day got away from me. I’m on my dinner break.”
“Were you expecting someone?”
To lie or tell the truth? “I wanted to touch base with Harlow about her findings.”
Vause didn’t call me on the lie, but her glossy façade lost a smidgen of its shine. “You’ve had a very trying day.” She picked a speck of lint from her tan pantsuit. “I thought perhaps if we held a discussion here, tonight, that would suffice.”
I lowered myself into the chair opposite her as the implication hit me. Vause didn’t want a paper trail. Linking me to Wink? Or me to her and her to Wink? Did this have something to do with the Unseelie Magistrate’s absence? “All right.”
She crossed her legs at the ankles. “Did you manage to complete a classification on the victim?”
“Yes.” Remembering the condition of the boy’s remains crushed my appetite, making it easier to tuck the menu into the fold between the arm and seat of my chair. “The cause of death was presumed to be drowning, but that’s where the similarities ended. The victim’s gender and the condition in which the remains were found breaks the pattern.” The implication was clear: there had been no reason for me to visit Wink. None at all. “I did manage to inspect the body prior to the attack, and I can confirm he was not one of ours.”
“Marshal Thackeray’s report mentioned that a man was killed at the scene.”
The hallway confrontation between Harlow and Letitia, the marshal’s widow, loomed in my mind. “That’s what I heard.”
Vause resumed her lint-picking with gusto. “What else did you hear?”
A pulse of spellwork set my lips tingling as if I had been sucking on a habanero chili, a reminder to be careful how much I divulged. “Thierry and I mostly talked about our families and how we came to be employed by the conclave.”
Vause shifted her weight and crossed her legs, then uncrossed them as though unable to get comfortable on the hard seat. “Thierry could be a valuable asset to you in the future.” She caught me watching her squirm and froze. “The circumstances of your meeting were unfortunate, but perhaps the connection will prove fortuitous in time.”
Vause was being squirrelier than usual. When magistrates began acting peculiar, bad things happened. Usually to the person who noticed the odd behavior.
Without fanfare, Vause stood, signaling the meeting’s end. “I should return to my hotel.” Her nose crinkled at the state of my room. “I prefer not to be so…exposed…after dark.”
Magistrate sightings were rare outside their respective regions. If someone recognized her, then her Unseelie counterpart would start asking questions I got the feeling Vause didn’t want answered. Not yet. Not until she had finished leading me around by the nose.
I gripped the arms of my chair, ready to lever myself to my feet, but she lifted a hand. “I can show myself out.” Her gaze lingered on the crumpled menu by my hip. “I understand you left the safe house with the warg today.”
“We drove into Falco together.”
“Keep an eye on him.” She straightened her blouse. “Wargs run hot. We can’t risk him damaging this case in the heat of the moment.”
Her guard had escorted her into the hallway before I formulated a response. The door shut behind them, and I slumped in my chair, grateful to have avoided butting heads with her over fae law versus native species law for the second time in one day.
My phone rang, but I was out of energy for conversation. I ignored it until the twentieth chime, and yes, I counted, then I accepted the person wasn’t giving up until they spoke with me.
“Ellis.”
“My, aren’t we formal?” Throaty laughter spilled over the line.
“Aunt Dot. Hi.” A surge of homesickness swept me upright. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner.”
When I had tried her this morning, I got her answering machine and left a quick message.
“It’s all right, pumpkin. I know how you get caught up in your work. Just next time don’t leave an old woman waiting on the porch in her jammies. Send one of those email things to Isaac or something.”
“I will.” I drew my legs into the chair, tucked my knees to my chest and braced to tell her the truth. She would find out eventually—I was a bad liar—and I didn’t want to end up with a bar of her homemade soap in my mouth when I fumbled my story. “I overextended on a case. I used too much magic, and it knocked me out for a full day. That’s why I missed my flight. It was too late to call when I woke up, so I waited until morning.”
Salty curse words peppered her end of the conversation. “Do you need me?”
The question made hot tears burn the backs of my eyes. If I said yes, she would hook her trailer up to her truck, or make Isaac do it, and she would drive straight here without sleeping. For a woman in her early sixties, with no love for technology, she had fully embraced the millennial caffeine culture. I had to pat her down at the grocery store for canned energy drinks and those little bottled shots before we got in the car.
“I’m fine.”
“Camille Annalise Ellis, you are never too old for me to bend over my knee. You better be telling me the whole story.”
“I am. I promise.” I jiggled my wrist so the bracelet Harlow had given me glinted in the low light. “I met someone and—”
“Is he handsome?” she asked coyly.
“No. Well,” I amended, “she’s pretty, but it’s not like that.”
“You got me excited there for a minute.” Aunt Dot sighed. “I was seeing grandbabies.” A considering note entered her voice. “How pretty is this girl you mentioned…?”
“She’s a kid, a teenager,” I said, exasperated. “She’s, I don’t know, a friend. I guess.”
“You made a friend?” She clapped in the background. “That’s wonderful news.”
Her wholehearted endorsement of Harlow based on nothing more than the fact she was a warm body willing to befriend me spoke volumes about my social life. Or the sad lack thereof. I’d always had trouble making friends. We traveled so much there wasn’t much point in trying. It had been pretty much just me and Isaac growing up, and he got in more fights than I could count once kids realized who I was, what I was. There were no lone Geminis. None. Except me. That made me a freak, and my other cousin, Isaac’s twin brother, Theo, was a twerp. Nine times out of ten he was the reason I was outed before the other kids could pinpoint exactly what was wrong about me.
“She kept an eye on me while
I recovered.” I kicked off my shoes. “Thanks to her—” and the warg I was most definitely not mentioning, “—I’m back at one hundred percent.”
“I’m so proud of you,” she gushed. “You ought to invite her to come home with you for a visit.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, grateful she couldn’t see me. “She’s busy with that case I’ve been working.”
“Well, when you two figure out who done it, she’ll be ready for a vacation.” Aunt Dot was already party-planning in her head. I could tell. “At least ask her, all right?”
“I will,” I promised, knowing I would wiggle out of it later with a flimsy excuse.
“When should I expect you home?” The sound of a screen door slamming would have told me she had taken the call outside even if the burst of katydid song hadn’t filled the line. “There’s no rush, mind you. I’m keeping an eye on your place and keeping your plants watered. I just like to know where my girl is when she isn’t home where I can watch after her.”
Being called her girl made my chest tighten. She was more of a mother to me than my own had been in the years since Lori died. I didn’t know where Mom and Dad were, and I wasn’t going to ask. I hadn’t seen them in five years and hadn’t gotten a card from them in three. Aunt Dot blamed the postal service and us being on the road so often, but we had lived in Three Way for a whole year. I knew the truth, even if she didn’t want to accept it or for me to have to face it.
“I should probably let you go.” I eyed the clock, and my stomach gurgled. “I’m about to order a late dinner and head to bed.”
“You should have eaten hours ago,” she chastised. “Maybe you should give me the number for that friend of yours, so I can tell her to keep a closer eye on you.”
What Aunt Dot meant was she wanted Harlow’s contact information so she could keep a closer eye on me.
I crossed my fingers, glad she couldn’t see. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good girl.”
I didn’t have to fake a yawn to sell how tired I still was. “Night-night.”
“Sleep tight,” she sang. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
I ended the call in a much better place than when it started. I even shot off a quick text to Isaac, letting him know I had finally spoken to his mom and that I would update him with my travel itinerary once I had flight times nailed down for my trip home. I didn’t wait for a response. He wasn’t a text-you-back kind of guy.
I was right back to debating the merits of a late-night burger over a slow-roasted pork sandwich when staccato knocks had me tossing the menu aside for a second time. More cautious now, I approached the door and peeked through the hole. The quick uptick in my pulse at the sight of Graeson drew his attention to the fisheye lens. Coincidence. Had to be. His hearing wasn’t that acute. Was it? There was no going back now. I opened the door.
“Graeson.” Determination not to be the first one who mentioned food had my fingers tightening on the doorknob. “Did you forget your room number?”
“No.” He traced the long groove in the doorframe until he tapped the brassy strike plate with a fingertip. “I remembered yours.”
“Nice line.” I braced my palm against the doorframe, barring him from entering the room until I decided whether to let him in. “Catch many fish with that one?”
He feigned a wince while rotating his shoulder. “Sorry, old reeling injury. It acts up from time to time.”
“You sure are corny for a warg.” I peered at him through narrowed eyes. “Are you sure you’re not a deer shifter or something? I don’t have a salt lick, but I’ve got a packet of salt in the bottom of my purse. I think. Maybe that was silica.”
For a second I thought he would laugh at my weak joke and that maybe I might join in, because I was proud of having made one, but I saw the moment guilt wiped the budding grin from his mouth.
“She would want you to smile.” How many times had Aunt Dot used that line on me? Too many. I heard its echo every time I wanted to laugh but didn’t. “She wouldn’t want you to feel guilty for moving on with your life.”
A frown marred his forehead. “Did you move on?”
“I’m still here.” Few people outside our breed understood the enormity of that.
“Isn’t this the part where you spout more BS about keeping my chin up or something?”
“Would that make you feel better?”
“No.”
“Then here’s the truth. The condolences get stuck in your head after a while, a string of pep talks and well wishes that loops.” My arm dropped. “The phrases don’t change. Only the faces of the people saying them do.”
“I like you, Ellis.” The tightness around his mouth eased. “You’re authentic.”
“There are worse labels,” I joked halfheartedly. “How did your meeting with the local wargs go?”
“As well as can be expected.” He shrugged. “Our packs aren’t allied. Visiting to pay my respects to their alpha was a formality to preserve the peace. That’s all.”
I smoothed my expression. “So what brings you by so late?”
“I wanted to ask for your help.” The last shreds of possibility that he had just been running late for dinner tore away and fluttered to the carpet where his shifting feet ground my fragile hope to dust. “I think you’re the only one who can.”
His earnestness plucked at my conscience, and I found myself asking, “What do you need?”
His large body crowded mine, his voice pitched low. “Can we move this somewhere more private?”
I thumped my forehead against the door. It didn’t shake loose a new verdict. Apparently I was decided. “Come inside.” He shifted his weight, and I noticed the strap of a bag he hadn’t had the last time I saw him hooked over one of his shoulders. “What is that?”
He patted the satchel. “Evidence.”
What could he have found that I didn’t already have access to? And where had he gotten it? Not from unallied wargs, so who? Clearly there were missing links. After all, Vause had sat in this very room and asked me not to file a report on the incident in Wink. I hadn’t realized Graeson had those kinds of connections. A shiver skipped down my spine, and I stepped to one side, ushered him inside and turned the lock.
“You brought it with you?” Exasperation trumped my trepidation. “You were that confident I would want to know?”
“You’re a mess of conflicting emotions.” He tapped his nose. “I can smell it.”
“I thought I smelled like grief.”
“You do. Sometimes.” He slung his bag onto the sofa where Vause had sat and dropped down beside it, nose wrinkling as he inhaled, probably the anti-bac lingering in the air. “But you smell different now than you did when we met. Something is bothering you. It’s more than what Vause subjected you to. You’re second-guessing yourself. Doubt carries a pungent scent.”
“Maybe I am having doubts,” I allowed, gesturing toward his satchel. “Does that mean you still want to trust me with this?”
“Yes.” No hint of hesitation. “If you didn’t question the system when it fails to meet your expectations, then you would either be corrupt or a sheep, and you’re neither of those. You care. You proved that in the interrogation room today. Otherwise you sure as hell wouldn’t subject yourself to Vause’s machinations.”
Since I considered myself a decent agent, most days, I didn’t disabuse him of the notion. I did plop into the chair across from him while he woke his computer. “Okay.” I clasped my hands. “Let me have it.”
“I fed the coordinates of each crime scene into an online mapping program.” He spun his laptop on his knees so we both had a clear view of the screen. Graeson had made the connection between the crime scenes faster than I had, but he was coming in late and had access to months’ worth of intel. “There’s a pattern.”
“There have been attacks in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and now Alabama,” I agreed, tracing my finger from point to po
int. “The deaths are occurring clockwise across the map.” I tapped the state we both currently occupied. “There is no Alabama victim. Elizabeth McKenna escaped.” I slid my finger left. “That means if the conclave wants to get ahead of Charybdis, we have two chances left. We can pick him up here in Falco if he tries again…”
“…or in Mississippi,” he finished the thought.
“The question is: what does the pattern mean?” I ran my finger from dot to dot a second time. “I don’t know much about spellwork, but that looks like a circle to me, and those are building blocks for all kinds of powerful magic.”
“Kelpies are magic. They can’t practice it. Not like witches and sentient fae do.” His gaze went distant. “Animals don’t have the same capacity for spellwork as other fae or even mortals.”
“So is the shape random, making Charybdis the kelpie?” I tread carefully, fully aware of the prickle in my lips as I skated close to the boundaries of my oath. “Or is the circle intentional, and Charybdis is a fae or witch who’s harnessed the beast in order to keep their hands clean?”
One thing was certain. I needed to see the surveillance video Thierry had mentioned, even if I had to fly back to Wink to do it. She was certain a humanoid fae had exited the portal from Faerie, and it had the ability to become intangible. Neither of those things explained how the kelpie got involved. I had to see that tape. I was missing something.
Graeson canted his head, studying me, and I wondered if he scented the spell humming over my skin. “What do you think?”
“The methodology is too precise to be coincidental.” I didn’t believe it was random animal behavior for a second. “The murders happen like clockwork. I’ve kept a bag packed by the door because I knew when to expect the call.” He encouraged me by leaning forward. “The victims are taken weeks in advance from when their bodies are found. Wink was a mistake. That wasn’t his kill. Which means the schedule remained intact until the McKenna girl escaped. He would have taken her—” I battled down nausea, “—and held her captive until it was time to kill her and leave the body where it would be discovered.”
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