“You think he wants the bodies to be found,” Graeson mused. “Yet Charybdis chooses secluded areas for his kills.”
“The victims could have gone for weeks, maybe months without being discovered. Yet the conclave is right on top of them, almost like they know where he’ll strike next.” I held up a finger. “Or like he’s telling them where to look. He wouldn’t be the first serial killer to crave the notoriety. By using remote locations and then tattling to the fae authorities, he would keep humans out of it.”
“Assuming he cares about involving humans,” he interjected.
Most of Faerie gave about as much consideration to humans as humans did to fleas on a stray cat. Meticulous or not, I doubted Charybdis cared whether mortals or their authorities took notice of his body of work. Based on the assumption he was the fae from the portal, I was betting it was recognition from his own kind that he craved.
“The circle…” His gaze sharpened on the laptop’s screen. “Maybe he does need those bodies found. Maybe it’s part of the ritual.”
The thought had occurred to me, but he seemed more informed in spellwork than I was. “What do you mean?”
“Spells of that scope are often underpinned by sympathetic magic rather than drawing direct from a practitioner. Encircling an entire state is ambitious. Drawing that much power from a single individual would kill them, but Charybdis doesn’t shy away from murder.” He appeared to ponder that. “Each death might work as an anchor point to the spell. The sacrifice might be enough to nudge the spell into consciousness. It would become self-sustaining. It would feed on the outrage and the anger, even the grief generated from that death by using the site as a focal point.”
“The spell would feed itself?” I shivered, and it wasn’t because the central air had kicked on in my room. “That means discovery would be a critical point in the process. Perhaps not vanity but necessity.” He began massaging his jaw, scratching at his bristles, and I got the feeling he was stalling. “What’s wrong?”
A few taps of his fingers zoomed in on the state caught in the middle of the circle. “You’ve got family in Tennessee, right?”
“Yes.” It was a matter of public record, and I had told Harlow, so it wasn’t surprising Graeson knew too.
“That doesn’t worry you?” He slid his finger along the route of the crime scenes, like a secondary pattern might emerge if he retraced the path often enough. “Once that circle is completed, it will enclose your home state.”
“I’m keeping an eye on it,” I assured him. “Right now we have no reason to believe the residents are in any danger.”
Setting the circle was ambitious, sure, and creating a magical anchor that was self-sustaining was mind-boggling, yes, but closing a spell that enormous? It would require a level of power unseen in this realm. Until we had reason to believe it could be done, asking my family to vacate their home of the past twelve months felt premature. Isaac wouldn’t mind, and Aunt Dot was itching to buy into a new zip code, but I kept dragging my heels. Requesting a new assignment wasn’t the issue. The Earthen Conclave couldn’t deny me because Gemini were drifters by nature, and they were all about accommodating the inherent needs of the fae species in their employ. What bogged me down was the unexpected pleasure I got from always knowing where to book my flights, always knowing where to go when a job ended. Putting in for a transfer meant packing up and moving. Again. It meant leaving behind all the good memories attached to our current location.
Three Way was starting to feel like more than a pad of concrete where I parked my trailer. It almost felt like…home.
Graeson grunted, drawing my attention back to him. “How do you know so much about spellwork?”
“My brother-in-law’s a witch.” A few taps on his phone’s screen pulled up an image of a slender man with tan skin and black hair wearing a bored expression standing with his legs spread and arms held out to his sides. Children dangled from each of his limbs as though he were a living jungle gym. A curvy woman with the same hazel eyes as Graeson stood in the background. She covered her mouth while she laughed. “His opinions can’t be included in any official record since the conclave most likely wouldn’t hire him, even as a consultant, because of his pack affiliation, but he’s a coven leader. The man knows his magic. He’s volunteered to help with what comes next.”
“What’s that exactly?” I asked hesitantly.
“You lied to me and to Marshal Comeaux,” he said casually, as though he hadn’t just been inquiring about my family. The accusation punched me in the gut. I didn’t see it coming. I should have. I knew he hadn’t forgiven or forgotten that small fact. “You touched Marie.” A few more clicks. “I saw what you did with the McKenna girl. You knew her species after holding her hand.” He glanced up, and our eyes met. “What else can you tell?”
My lips compressed into a stubborn line. When he said he had evidence to gain entrance to my room, I hadn’t realized he meant against me.
“Conclave purse strings are tight from what I hear.” Click. Click. Click. Thick fingers punished the keyboard. “The only way the conclave is footing the bill to fly you around the country for this case instead of hiring local talent is if you’re providing a service no one else can. At least not all in one package.”
“Classification is a rare talent.”
“That’s not the service I mean.”
The blood rushed from my face and left my lips as cold as the underbelly of a glacier. The backs of my knees hit the edge of the chair and buckled. I sat down hard and couldn’t get my feet under me even though I wanted to put as much distance as possible between us. “You mean Lori.”
His absence suddenly made a lot more sense. While I was napping, he must have been doing his research, plotting the second he understood the breadth of my talent. His eagerness to use me shouldn’t have stung. He had all but told me at breakfast he was tending what he saw as an asset. Lucky him, his short-term investment had paid off the second I walked into that interrogation room.
“We’re tracking a fae who’s murdering children.” He made it sound as if it was his case, like he was doing me a favor by explaining things. “This possibility must have crossed your mind.”
“No.” I gripped the armrests and sank my nails into the pleather. “I can honestly say the thought of using my dead sister as bait to catch a serial killer never crossed my mind. Not even once.”
I spent hours a day careful not to think about her, so no, even as freely as I offered my other services, I had never considered using Lori. Not once. Not ever. She was a private torment made public by necessity, and that was my mistake. “I’m not some menu you can order services from.” Rage trembled in my fingers. “Magistrate Vause—”
“Don’t try to defend her.” Gold devoured his irises until his eyes were shimmering pools of gilded rage. “I stood right beside her in that blacked-out room and watched the fucked-up show she orchestrated.” A snarl entered his voice. “What she did to you was cruel, and do you know how she felt when you walked into the room? Smug.” The laptop made a popping sound where his fingers dented the plastic. “She sprang it on you without warning because she knew you would balk, she knew you would never consider using that gift yourself, and she exploited your pain. You were suffering in front of an audience while she patted herself on the back at a job well done.”
“Magistrates are sidhe nobles. They come from power and influence, and they’re ruthless.” Anyone who had crossed one wore the scars. I had several myself. “Vause isn’t going to offer me a teddy bear or a plate of fried potatoes for doing what she views as my job, and I don’t expect her to.”
“Then why do you smell so wounded?” His gaze cooled until his eyes were hazel once again. “Are you hurt because I pulled the blinders off your eyes?”
My thoughts were a runaway train of regret. I wanted you to be different. I wanted an uncomplicated meal with a handsome guy without an agenda. I wanted you to like me for me, not for what I can do for you. I had been a f
ool to forget, even for a second, that he entered my life when Marie exited his. Her passing linked us, not a mutual like or respect, but a job. One he expected me to do no matter the cost. I didn’t know how to put any of that into words, so I didn’t try. “I think you should leave.”
“No.”
“No?” I gritted my teeth. “This is my room. You don’t get to make that call.”
“I’m the only person in this game who won’t lie to you, Ellis. I’m not sneaking around behind your back. I’m not lying to you or trying to trick you.” His earnest expression never wavered. “I’m sitting right here in front of you, laying all my cards on the table. I’m being honest.” His jaw flexed. “I want to use you—as Lori—for bait. Together I think we can end this.”
Laughter sliced up the back of my throat. “Hypocrite much?”
“I never said Vause had a bad idea.” He looked pained to give her that much credit. “Manipulation isn’t the right way to go about asking for your help. She shouldn’t have kept Lori in her back pocket like an ace in the hole in the event the conclave managed to corral Charybdis and needed an operative to bring him down. The day she pulled your file and chose you for this was the day she should have confronted you with her plan. That’s what I believe, and my being here ought to be proof of that.” His shoulders tensed. “I’ve told you what I need from you. Will you help me?”
The question lingered between us, and I sat there rubbing at a grease stain on my knee from the bacon I had eaten at the breakfast we had shared this morning, the one where I thought tonight would be ending with a belly full of food and not rage. I embraced the anger. It broiled away my aching uncertainty into a flawless clarity that allowed me to appreciate what he was saying, the logic of it, and then wield that same instrument to deduce what he wasn’t.
“You weren’t surprised.” The truth slammed into me. “In Falco, you weren’t surprised I could shift.” Most folks were stunned where he had been sympathetic. It wasn’t a talent I often showcased for good reason, yet he took it all in stride. A worse possibility dawned. “Were you at the Wink Sinks? Is that how you knew?”
“I interviewed one of the marshals.” Tension in the air thickened, and he admitted, “He told me what you did.”
So he had come to find me knowing I could shift even if he hadn’t grasped the parameters of my abilities.
“That explains the white-glove service.” Feeding me, driving me around and hauling my luggage up to my room. “You wanted to keep an eye on me until you figured out what Vause saw in me.” I felt sick. Nauseous. I wanted to crawl in bed, pull the covers over my head and stay there for a month. “Then you saw Lori, and the cogs started turning.”
“The killer is targeting young fae girls,” he pressed. “Tell me it’s a coincidence you can shift into a child’s form. Not an illusion, an actual child. Tell me Vause doesn’t know exactly how to play on your guilt over Lori to coerce you into doing what I’m asking you to do of your own free will.”
I got to my feet and smoothed the wrinkles from my pants.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“You won’t leave my room, so I’ll go.” I walked to the door and snagged my purse too fast for him to dump the contents off his lap and come after me. “Make sure you lock up when you’re done.”
Once out in the hall, I made the short trip to Harlow’s room. The “Do Not Disturb” sign still hung from the lever. So much for hiding out with her. There went my buffer. I pulled out my phone and dialed her number but got punted straight to voicemail.
The late hour and the warg occupying my room left me with few options. Figuring Harlow must still be on the scene in Falco, I rode the elevator down to the lobby and called a cab. Cellphones and water didn’t mix, so it made sense she wouldn’t keep hers on her. I’d head out there, give myself time to cool off, and she could give me a ride back to the hotel. I would treat her at one of those twenty-four-hour restaurants that did brisk business preying on interstate traffic with their glossy signs and promises of bottomless mugs of coffee. Right now that kind of anonymity hit the spot.
Chapter 9
Brushy Creek Lake resembled all the other lake turned crime scenes I had visited since Charybdis began his murder spree. He definitely had a preference for the remote and the tick-infested.
“You sure you don’t want me to hang around?” The cabbie leaned out his window, scratching his cheek as he took in the desolate location. A full moon hung overhead, muted by the thick beams of his headlights. “I got a daughter your age. I wouldn’t leave her out here’s all I’m sayin’.”
“You don’t have to worry about me.” I pointed to the far end of the weedy parking lot where a black van straddled crumbling white lines. “That’s my ride home. I’m meeting a friend here.”
“Friend? Hope you don’t mean a guy. Only one thing they want if they ask you to meet them at a van in the woods.” He huffed. “It ain’t right. No friend of yours ought to drag you out here in the middle of the damn night.”
Smothering a grin at the human working himself into a protective frenzy over me, I took pity on his conscience and removed my ID from the purse slung over my shoulder. I flipped open the wallet and presented my badge, which was enchanted to appear to him as what he expected to see, whether that meant local law enforcement or a government agency. Still wary, he pulled a flashlight out of his console and swept it down the side of the van, illuminating the seal of the local marshal’s office, which was also glamoured to meet his expectations.
“I guess you can take care of yourself, huh?” He squinted at the badge one last time. “You keep my number, all right? I’m on the clock until six this morning. If you run into any trouble, you give me a call.”
“I will,” I promised, stepping back to give him room to execute a three-point turn.
His hand twisted in a slight wave, and he was gone.
Night sounds creeped over me as I stood, allowing my eyes to adjust to the gloom. That the noise and light from the cab hadn’t brought Harlow running wasn’t a great sign. I crossed to the van and found it empty, as expected. I checked the handle. The door was unlocked. I used the step and braced a knee on the front seat to get a look around. A pair of lime-green skate shoes sat on the front passenger seat, but her cellphone was nowhere in sight. I peered into the night through the windshield.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
My head popped up and smacked the ceiling of the van. Rubbing the sore spot, I climbed out and slammed the door hard enough the vehicle rocked. Graeson stood cloaked in shadow.
“What’s wrong?” I grimaced. “Afraid Charybdis might nab me before you get the chance to toss me at him?”
Graeson stepped from the trees into the parking lot, and moonlight kissed his bare skin. He was naked. Fully nude. Not a scrap of clothes on him. I’m not proud of how long I struggled to drag my focus from his navel to his gaze. A few inches lower, and I would never be able to make eye contact with the man again.
“My plan involves a team operating in a controlled environment where you’re kept perfectly safe, not rushing into the unknown without backup.” Another step closer. “I would never allow you to be harmed. Not even to capture him.”
Except he already had, whether he knew it or not, by pretending to be interested when all the while he was sizing me up for other reasons.
“You seem to have lost your clothes,” I pointed out, voice higher than usual.
“I heard you tell the cabbie where to take you. I shifted and followed. It was fastest.” He frowned at his body, as if not seeing the problem. “It’s too dangerous for you to be out here alone.”
“I’m not alone.” My traitorous gaze dipped to his collarbone before I caught it sliding south and jerked it up to his jawline. “Harlow is out here somewhere. Her belongings are still in this van.”
He tipped his face into the wind. “All the scents here are hours old.”
“Then where is she?” I turned back to the van
. “Her shoes are in there. She can’t have gone far without them.”
“You’re assuming she was on two legs. She is a mermaid…sometimes.” He hesitated as if her dual nature confused him too. “She might still be in the water.”
Foreboding slithered down my spine. “Her team wouldn’t have left if she was MIA.”
“Are you sure?” His tone made it clear he figured the marshals for deserters.
The urge to defend the conclave parted my lips, but I had seen how the marshals in Wink treated Harlow, and that was before she got one of their own killed. Gossip spread fast among fae. Soon it would be hard for her to find work, and walking onto a job would mean watching her back. She had faced this new team and new location alone, and I got a bad feeling about that.
I picked a direction and launched my one-woman search party. “I’m going to look for her.”
“I’ve scented Harlow and the McKenna girl,” he called. “I’ll be able to track down where the attack happened.”
I kept walking.
“The lake is in the other direction,” he yelled helpfully.
I let my head fall back until the sky filled my vision. When no divine help was forthcoming, I straightened my shoulders and faced the naked man. My eyes wanted to map his body in search of more tattooed skin when I should have wanted to parade him through the brush in the hopes his free-range trouser-snake got snagged by briars or brushed against poison ivy.
“Let’s get this over with,” I huffed.
He chuckled under his breath. “There’s the spirit.”
He set off in the opposite direction, leaving me with a prime view of his muscled shoulders and a different kind of full moon shining below his waist. I didn’t look. For long. Nice butt or not, he and I wanted different things from each other. Not that I wanted him. I mean, I barely knew him, but he was easy on the eyes, and I hadn’t seen a naked man in…
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