Tuck narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—” That she was an idiot who didn’t know what the hell she was doing. “—that there’s a group of paranormals whose job is to keep the knowledge of paranormals secret. So, when a boob like me tells a human like Barn all of our big bad secrets, he dies and it’s on me. Unless,” she held up a finger, “I can prove to them that he has value.”
“And that’s how I’m getting to know.”
That wasn’t a question. He was a quick study. “Yeah. But I made sure to clear it with them before I endangered you.”
“At least you’re learning.”
She gave him a dry look. “I’m not as quick on my feet as I’d hoped.”
“We’ll see what we can do with him, but I’m not making any promises.” Tuck ran his tongue along his front teeth. “Okay. What else?”
“We would be assisting your department, but if there’s a case that’s ours, I would request we run lead.”
“As long as my officers are a part of your investigation, fine.”
“Fine.” But there was the risk of too much information. But the whole reason it was getting harder and harder to protect the paranormals was because it was getting harder to hide information. So, what if they just stopped hiding here? Where did the sisterhood draw the line? “You should probably warn your officers of some of the things they might see.”
Tuck tipped his head to the side. “What else?”
“Honestly?”
“Shouldn’t change that up now, should we?”
Fair point. “I don’t know. I’m learning as I go here. This? What we’re trying here? First time. Never been done before. Well, as far as I know, anyway, so I’m feeling my way through it. I’m almost pretty sure I’m mucking it up.”
Tuck scratched his beard. “Okay. Well, I get to vet your officers.”
Shit. “That could be…a bit challenging.”
“How so?”
“Well, um—well, a few of them broke ‘laws’ in order to contain paranormal situations. So, they’re not all…clean.”
Tuck nodded, biting the inside of his lips. He raised his eyebrows and stood. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Then, I’ll bring them by.” And hope they passed. If not, she’d get Scout that much faster.
He offered his hand. “All right. Captain.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Captain. Which meant she’d be answering to him, but at least he was open to the idea. He’d be okay to work for. She felt better knowing she had him to go to if she needed. She took his hand. “Chief.”
“I look forward to working with you.”
So was she. Kind of. Sort of.
It terrified her.
Rainbow Blu stood beside the doors the next morning when Paige rolled in at a quarter to six. She wore jeans and a button up shirt. Her afro was still big and beautiful. There was something gorgeous about an afro. Probably had something to do with the fact that their hair defied gravity.
Three cars she didn’t know were in the parking lot, a lone body in each. When she stepped out of her car, they did, too.
Quinn Winters, Tarik Riyad, and Michelle Gomez.
Well, there was no time to start like now.
“Hey, guys,” Paige called as she went to unlock the door.
“Hey yourself, Director.” Michelle Gomez smiled at her.
“It’s Captain.” Paige smiled and bowed her head. “Official and everything.”
Michelle smiled appreciatively. “So, what are we?”
Paige had thought long and hard about that over dinner, discussing it with the family—who didn’t care—and Ethel—who was bubbling with excitement. “We’re the Troutdale PD, Red Star Division.”
Michelle pulled her head back, rolling that around in her head as they all walked in. She stopped as soon as she flipped the light switch to the bullpen. Her lips rounded as she stared in amazement.
Paige nodded, taking in the living walls and the comfortable working spaces. Yesterday, she’d been worried she’d made the wrong choice. Today, though? Not so much. They weren’t the average police department.
“This is amazing.” Michelle walked to the first desk area and touched a green leaf. “When did you do this?”
“Yesterday. A few people in the pack brought these by for us.”
“The pack?” Quinn asked, her eyes narrowed, her guard up as she took it all in.
“Yes. They know that witches like green and growing things.”
“Not all witches,” Tarik said, his tone amused as he looked around, keeping a careful distance between Michelle and himself.
“No.” Though, Paige didn’t know that. She knew her family. She didn’t know what the other witch families liked or didn’t like. But a djinn? He might know.
“Plants?” Quinn curled her lip up. “Really?”
Paige smiled at the siren and tipped her head. “Choose your desk.”
Tarik frowned at her as he walked by, his business loafers tap-tap-tapping on the floor. “How intriguing, Captain Whiskey. You have designed this with extraordinary ability.”
She really wasn’t used to silver-tongued people talking to her. “Thanks.”
Michelle’s smile bloomed as she took in the vine draped overhead, the orange trumpet flowers blooming around her desk. “This is so peaceful.”
“That was the point.” Paige watched Quinn. She didn’t know a lot about sirens, but she’d had an idea, a gut instinct, about how to fashion Quinn’s desk.
Rainbow stopped at the desk that had water elements installed around it. “You didn’t.”
She had, though it hadn’t been easy. She’d had to create a “motor” that self-charged itself so it would continue to run. Paige had created a kind of roller-coaster-like mote out of sweet potato vine. It attached to Rainbow’s desk, the water flowing constantly through the channel. The vine moved with Rainbow, though, whether that was because of the rusalka or because of what Paige had done—or attempted to do—Paige didn’t know for certain. She wasn’t the greatest witch ever.
But the area she’d created for Quinn was as sound insulated as she could make it while using only plants and magick.
Quinn disappeared into her mini-sound booth. She turned in a slow circle, her almost almond-shaped eyes growing wider and wider. She stepped out. Stepped back in.
There was a spell inside that muffled outside noises. As a siren, whose gift relied on the sound of her voice, Paige had the feeling she might like a little break from constant noise.
Paige followed her in. “You touch this spot right here,” she touched a spot on the desktop, “and the sound canceling is turned off. Touch it again, and it’s back on again.”
“How did you—” Quinn’s normally frigid expression softened. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t.” Paige smiled. “It was a guess. But this sound canceling doesn’t work both ways. We can still hear everything you say. Well, within reason.
Quinn slowly smiled, her shoulders relaxing. “Thank you, witch.”
“That’s Captain Witch to you.”
They shared a smile.
“Captain,” Rainbow said, clutching a set of files to her chest. “I have those cases I want to show you. Now that we’re closer to being official.”
Chief Tuck had sent over the forms they had to fill out for hire, which included insurance. Something she hadn’t thought of previously. “I emailed everyone packets to fill out.”
“I was going to fill mine out here,” Quinn said. “Is that all right? You have a scanner?”
No. “Police station will have one. Also, you’re all going to have to interview with Chief Tuck. Good guy. Knows mostly what’s going on. We’re gonna be on the level with him and his team.”
“His team of red necks?” Michelle asked.
“Small town,” Paige said, deescalating the situation before it built. “But that doesn’t mean they’re stupid. They see things. They know things aren’t on the u
p and up. They know something’s going on. We’ll feel it out, but we’re using their call center, their morgue.”
Michelle blew out a breath. “This will go great.”
Paige needed to deal with this since Michelle wasn’t going to de-escalate herself. “I get that you’ve been on the receiving end of racism.” She was Hispanic. “And sexism.” She was a woman. “And paranormalism.” Which wasn’t a word, but should be. She was a dryad. “But this new path we’re forging will be paved using our actions. So, the crap you put out there is the crap you’ll get back.”
Michelle clamped her lips shut, her brown eyes letting Paige know she had more she wanted to say.
“When people are idiots, Chief Tuck and I will address that. In this place, you’re as safe as I can make it.”
“Aside from tracking down serial killers,” Rainbow said brightly. “That could get dangerous.”
Oh, that little girl-woman. But, yes.
“Okay. This is awesome-sauce and everything,” Rainbow said. “But can I show you my cases? I’ve worked really hard on them.”
The best way to de-escalate Michelle was to get her focused on work.
Paige directed them toward the back. A couch Garek and Clem had found by the dumpster—or so they said—sat next to the wall. The over-stuffed white chair from Paige’s apartment sat next to it, and the maroon loveseat—also from Paige’s apartment—sat next to that.
Beside all of the lounging space was a rolling white board with magnets.
Rainbow sighed in happy relief and set the folders on the arm of the sofa. “Okay. So, I’ve been tracking several missing persons down. Found their bodies. Strange stuff. Mostly in Portland. Mostly around the waterfront.”
“What waterfront?” Quinn asked. “There’s a lot of it.”
Oh, the benefits of hiring people who knew the area.
“All of it.” Rainbow unfolded a map and snapped it into place with magnets. “As you can see here. I haven’t determined patterns. Some were located at the kill site. Others were dragged or placed where they were found.”
Paige stepped forward to get a better look.
“Red is kill site. Blue is dump site.”
Lots of blue. Very little red, but none were centralized. They were all along the long river front, on both sides, both Oregon and Washington. She hadn’t realized just how close Washington really was.
“What connects them all?” Paige asked. “Besides the riverfront dump?”
“A combination of things. I think we have two murder types? I don’t know. This.” Rainbow slapped some pictures to the board. “Each victim looked normal at the dump site.”
And they did. Normal dead people. Each with their own bruising signs of how they died.
“But in the morgue…” Rainbow slapped up new photos of each victim underneath the original. “Excessive aging.”
Excessive was right.
“That man looks like he’s a hundred years old,” Quinn said, peering at the photos in wonder. “He started out in his mid-twenties?”
Rainbow nodded. “Good eye. But that’s not all. Each of these bodies?” She turned to Paige with a smile. “Disappeared from the morgue. No eyewitnesses. Nothing on the security cameras. Each time, the security cameras blip, go to static, and then the body is gone.”
Huh. Tru would have a field day with that.
No. Actually, Tru hadn’t really been too Tru-like since he got the job that would move the entire Whiskey tribe to Oregon. He’d sobered up. He’d started dressing like a man.
For all that Paige gave him a hard time about his wardrobe, she kinda missed the old Tru.
Hmm…maybe she should invite him to a good old ghost hunt.
Though she doubted they were hunting ghosts.
“This occurs in a very small portion of them, though.” Rainbow continued hanging up the pictures of the victims that fell under that category. Thirteen total.
“Were these people connected to children?”
Rainbow nodded. “Two teachers.” She hung up Shelia Blackman’s photo. “A child psychologist. A clown. I’m not kidding. A grandfather with a lot of grandchildren.”
Now to see just how good Rainbow was at building cases. “And the kids? Anything strange?”
“Yeah.” Rainbow held up a finger, shuffled through the paper and then started hanging up pictures of the kids. “They all started acting funny. I reached out to a psychic.” Rainbow twisted around, giving Paige a look that asked for a moment to explain. “They’re not all bad. Anyway, she said their souls had been taken, as were their parents’.”
Paige was aware of all that. It was nice, however, to see the information coming together on a board. “Are you going to need another one?” The one board was getting pretty full with pictures. She’s switched from magnets to tape after having run out of magnets a while ago.
“Um, yeah. If you’ve got one.”
Paige went into her office—where she’d intended to do the same thing, but with the files she’d received from Lovejoy—and pulled out the other rolling whiteboard. They were expensive as hell, but very handy.
“Thanks,” Rainbow said distracted.
Michelle had stood and was handing her pictures.
Tarik stayed at the back, mindful of Michelle.
Paige was going to have to fix that.
And Quinn watched, bored.
If Quinn was going to keep her position on the team, she was going to have to step up. If Paige could see experience points above each person’s head like a video game, she’d see no experience on a team that needed it. She itched to get Scout in there.
“I want to see what you have on the other stuff.”
“But this…” Rainbow gestured to the case she was putting up.
“Is something I know about already, and after this, I’ll fill you in on what I know. But I want to see what conclusions you made on the other set.”
“Oh. You do?”
Paige nodded, her hands clasped between her thighs as she perched on the arm of the couch.
“Oh. How?”
Should she keep it a mystery? She wasn’t good at that. “Director of the FBI. She’s been putting these pieces together, too.”
“Oh.” That word was filled with a tone of “Ah, shit.”
Paige held up her hand. “It’s good. You probably saw things she didn’t and visa-versa. So, please, continue.”
Rainbow sighed, but put the pictures in her hand down. She moved around Michelle to another stack of folders and opened a heaping one. “This one is what I was talking to you about in my interview.”
Michelle took a handful of photos and thumbed through them. “Who are they?”
“Just people.” Rainbow started taping up them onto the other board. “This one really does have several different killers. That one over there? Same person, trying to make it look different.”
“And how do you know that?” Paige asked.
“Rusalka,” Quinn said. “She’s kind of a death omen.”
Rainbow frowned, visibly upset.
How was it that in the middle of her interview, Rainbow had babbled like a teenaged school girl about how rusalkas had a bad wrap for being killers, but when Quinn mentioned it, all she got was a frown?
Quinn leaned back in her chair. “I’ve got the same issue, too. You weren’t lying when you said sirens lulled sailors to their deaths. We’re death kissed, too.”
And Paige had death magick running in her veins? Was that why she’d been compelled to hire these two?
No. She’s hired Quinn to keep an eye on Tyler’s instructor, and she’d hired Rainbow because, well, she was a pretty good detective.
“Okay. Well, that would have been handy to mention in your interviews,” Paige said.
Rainbow looked at Paige startled, as if she’d just been informed she was about to get kicked.
Paige gave Rainbow an open expression. “Because it’s a good selling point?”
“Oh.” Rainbow turned back to
her board.
“Hey,” Dexx called from the front. “Look at what I dragged in.”
Paige turned, peering through the foliage.
A man walked in beside Dexx. Taller than Dexx, and about twice his size. White. Hair so thin, he looked like he was bald. Thick, dark-framed glasses.
“Barn?” Paige grinned and walked through the maze to greet him, giving him a hug. Even though he was a loose end she really had no idea what to do with, she was glad he was there. “Oh my gosh, I didn’t expect you ‘til tomorrow.”
He grinned down at her and pulled back. “You said ‘dead bodies’ and I said ‘plane ticket.’”
She shook her head. “We aren’t actually in the possession of the body yet, Barn.”
“Oh, I know. I know. I already heard. Hey, can I borrow a car?”
Dexx held up a finger and shook his head as if to say, “not Jackie.”
Of course not Jackie. “Sure. You can borrow mine. What you got planned?”
“Well, first, I just had to make sure you hadn’t sold my job to anyone else.”
“The job I can’t pay you for? You mean that one?”
“I’ve got a plan for that.”
Paige nodded sagely, her eyebrow raised. “Okay. I don’t need details.”
“You’ll have them anyway. At dinner. Pie?”
“Oh, no.” Paige held up her hands. “Grandma has been busting her butt with the move even though we’ve all told her to slow her fuckin’ roll. So, no. There will only be pie if you buy it and bring it.”
“And then listen to her complain about it.”
“You’ll probably hear her snore.”
Barn shook his head. “All these years of hearing Ethel talk about Alma’s pies. And now I’m here.”
“And you’ll get another chance. Trust me. But not today.”
“Okay. Fine.”
“Fine.”
“All right.” Barn sighed dramatically and held out his hands. “Keys. I have an appointment.”
“Fine.” She rummaged in her pocket, pushed her chapstick aside, and pulled out the keys. She took the car keys off the ring and handed them to him. “You know my car.”
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