by Kate Baray
She glared at him but didn’t utter a sound. She did, however, bite the hell out of her lower lip.
It seemed like a never-ending fifteen minutes to Jack, as he waited for someone, somewhere to have heard the shots and come to investigate. Or for another traveler to venture down this back road and report the accident before they could clean up the scene. He could only imagine how rough it was for Marin, in pain, worried about discovery, and just dying to tell him how to deal with the cleanup.
Thirteen minutes later, Kai pulled up in his old Wrangler.
Kai jumped out and jogged to Marin. “At least I know why you guys weren’t coming to me. That’s a serious shame about the Range Rover.”
“Right?” Jack said. “I’m going to miss that truck.”
Marin glared at both of them.
It didn’t take Kai long to heal Marin sufficiently so that she could talk without excessive pain.
She stretched, grimaced, and then said, “Don’t worry. I’ll incinerate the whole mess.” Jack must have looked confused, because she immediately explained, “That is what you’ve been sitting here stressing out about for the last twenty minutes, right?”
Jack winced. “No comment.”
Marin snorted. “I get it.” Turning to Kai, she asked, “You can get the tear repaired, right? The rest is fine, I just need the lung intact before I set fire to that corpse over there.”
Kai sighed. “I was trying really hard not to notice the three-hundred-year-old corpse. Thanks for the reminder.”
“What the hell—are you serious?” Jack looked back at the heap of clothing and twisted limbs that used to be Conrad.
“Sure. I mean, it looks fresh—and I don’t want to know how that happened—but he’s definitely at least three hundred years past his sell-by date.” Kai turned back to work on Marin. Without looking up, he said, “Really. I don’t want to know.”
“Got it.” Jack glanced discreetly at his watch.
“I’m almost done.” Kai’s lips twitched. “Maybe five more minutes. This lady has enough juice to heal worse injuries to a critter five times her size.”
“Cute,” Marin said.
“Are you saying you’re using Marin’s magic to heal her wound?” Jack watched the two of them with curiosity.
“Yeah. That’s why you guys—non-magical people—are harder. No juice but my own involved.” Kai gave Marin a serious look. “Deep breath.” When she’d complied, he asked, “How does that feel?”
Marin gave Kai a glowing smile. “Much better than just patching the tear. Thank you.”
Jack pulled his gaze away from three-hundred-year-old Conrad and said, “Yes. Thank you. I hope we didn’t wreck your entire evening.”
Kai grinned. “Are you kidding? You guys are the only excitement I get. I was thinking about moving closer to New Orleans, but if you keep this up, I’ll start to feel almost useful.”
Marin stood up and offered Kai her hand. “Glad to provide entertainment. And thanks again.”
Kai pulled her close for what looked like a friendly, but not over-friendly, hug. “Stay safe.” He lifted a hand in Jack’s direction and headed back to his Jeep.
“Wait till he’s gone then blow the whole thing up into unrecognizable bits?” Jack asked hopefully.
Marin huffed out a small laugh. “Don’t you wish. We call the locals and report the accident, but I think incinerating the body is a good idea. Who knows what an autopsy would reveal.”
“He hit us, we were confused, by the time we got out of the car, he was gone.” Jack shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I need the body away from the scene. Somewhere that a char mark won’t be noticed. The woods.”
Jack started to head in Conrad’s direction, but stopped when his hip protested. “Shit. Why didn’t I hit him up for a little healing boost?”
“Because you were so worried about me.” Marin towed him along behind her as she headed to collect Conrad’s body. “Or you forgot how much you hurt because you’d been still in one place for so long.”
“Yeah. Not to burst your bubble, but once I realized you weren’t dying... So, uh, definitely the second one.” Jack braced himself to pick up the body. “I get a warm bath after this. Promise me, please. And no teasing if I break down into tears.”
“I’m laughing my ass off if you cry.”
They bantered back and forth the entire trip to the woods, each of them desperately clinging to any topic but the lifeless creature they carried.
Once the body was safely burned, the cops called, and the accident reported, two hours had passed. The police had been suspicious. Conrad was, not surprisingly, well liked. But when it came right down to it, he wasn’t a local. And Marin and Jack hadn’t done anything wrong from what the officer could see. It was clear the Range Rover had been rear-ended. After Marin passed a Breathalyzer, and both she and Jack had emphatically refused medical treatment, they both piled into the cab of the tow truck and hitched a ride to the B&B with the driver.
It wasn’t until the tow truck was pulling away that Jack realized he and Marin hadn’t discussed what they’d tell Milton. And Rose. And Betty. And Dottie. Or if they’d tell Karen anything at all. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I desperately want that soak in a bath.”
“Yeah. But there’s no better time to check out Conrad’s house than now. No way is that officer gaining access this evening.”
“Dammit, you’re right.” Jack closed his eyes and let his head roll back. “Ow.”
“Your neck hurts too?”
Jack sighed. “Apparently. All right. Let’s head in. And if Milton’s up, we spill the beans tonight—otherwise we do it tomorrow after a decent night’s sleep. What the hell are we going to tell him?”
“The truth, I think. It’s not much crazier than someone contaminating the water supply.” Marin shrugged. “It’s just a question of whether we say magic, hypnosis, drugs...or something else.”
“Karma is a complete bitch.” Jack smiled weakly.
Marin tipped her head quizzically.
“That call to your dad that I pushed you to make? I’m making my own uncomfortable little call. Harrington is going to make the call on magic, drugs, hypnosis, or something else.”
“Oh.” Marin shot Jack a sympathetic look. “That sucks.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Drugs, hypnosis, memory loss, and cover-ups. Not the conversation Milton had likely expected when he’d come down to check on the late arrivals. The tow truck lights had woken him when they’d flashed through his bedroom window.
Milton sat very still, wrapped in his bathrobe, his hand clenched around a mug of herbal tea. “So you’re saying that he drugged Rose and used hypnosis to make her forget certain things. Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s sick, Milton. Really sick. But he’s gone now. Jack and I made sure he couldn’t keep hurting people.” Marin looked so earnest that even Jack was starting to buy the story. And, really, most of it was true.
“I don’t understand why the police aren’t involved. What am I supposed to do to help her get better? What do I tell the doctors?” Milton’s worried gaze dug at Jack.
Here was the tricky part.
“Like I said, Jack and I aren’t with the police, but we work with a law enforcement agency out of Europe, where Blevins has committed similar crimes. That agency has contacts with the FBI and Interpol, and we’ve been authorized to provide you with the name of a representative from each of those organizations.” Marin pulled out her phone and carefully copied the names of two people and their phone numbers. “If you have any questions, you can ask either of these two people—but it’s quite important that you only speak with these people.” She gave him a soft, compassionate look. “Do you understand?”
“I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure I understand why.” Milton took a sip of the now cold tea. When Marin was about to explain further, he shook his head. “No. I don’t care. I just need to know what I can do for Rose.”<
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Jack leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands together. “The good news is that Rose isn’t sick. The memories are gone, but you can tell her stories, share your memories, and fill in the gaps. We also think that her confusion will diminish over the next few weeks now that Conrad isn’t actively interfering with her perception of time.”
An educated guess that he and Marin had made—something had made Rose’s symptoms different from Eric’s and Betty’s.
Milton’s bushy grey eyebrows pulled close together. “And if it doesn’t?”
“Then you can call one of the contacts we’ve given you and they’ll help you,” Jack said. He suspected that the FBI or Interpol contact would have Kai or another healer come by to check on Rose.
Milton shook his head. “So she won’t remember, but she doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. That’s good news.” His whole body relaxed into the kitchen chair. “Really good news.”
~*~
Sitting in the passenger seat of Milton’s car, Marin said, “Do I want to know how many favors you owe Harrington for getting the Inter-Pack Policing Cooperative involved in this mess?”
“After that frantic middle-of-the-night call—or early morning, in his case—I expected Harrington to wring me dry.” Jack started the car and began the familiar drive to Conrad’s house. “But as soon as I gave him the details, he immediately offered up two contacts. Either Harrington was pissed off about the types of victims Conrad was choosing, or he was appalled by the sheer number of victims out there. In three hundred years, there’s no telling how many people’s lives and families he destroyed.” Jack shifted in the seat, trying to find a comfortable position for his throbbing hip. “There’s no way to know—Harrington didn’t share. But those are my two best guesses.”
“Hm. I think it more likely Harrington’s worried about the exposure risk.” Marin frowned. “Really, you can pull over and let me drive. How finicky can this hunk of junk be?”
“With an attitude like that, very. Besides, I’m fine.” Jack groaned. “But I’m not looking forward to hopping fences. Surely it’s late enough to park on his street. No one’s going to be up at three in the morning, right?”
“Let’s hope.”
Fifteen minutes later, Jack was back to being creeped out by Marin’s walking-through-walls act, though he had to admit it was less bizarre the second time. The door opened and Marin poked her head out. “Come on already.”
Jack slipped in and quietly closed the door. “I’ll check the bottom floor and you do the top—assuming you’re pretty sure nothing’s warded in here.”
“Should be good,” Marin whispered over her shoulder as she headed to the stairs. “I’ll pick up the pieces if I’m wrong.”
Jack was way too tired to even think about being annoyed. He just wanted to get this search over and get some sleep before he had to face Betty and Dottie in the morning. It had been a difficult decision, but Marin and he had agreed to leave Karen out of the follow-up. Nothing they could say would change the fact that her husband was dead, and she was trying to move on. Jack had no idea if that was the right decision, but it was the one they’d made.
He was standing in front of the fridge, getting up the nerve to open it—all he could think about was finding a bunch of hacked-up body parts—when his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and answered after he saw that it was Marin. “Hey, can you hang on just a sec?”
He opened the door. Whew. Gatorade, lemonade, iced tea, orange juice. Not a speck of food. Mr. Blevins liked his fluids. “Weird. He’s got no food in the fridge or cupboards, but about ten different kinds of drinks. What’s up?”
“You need to come upstairs.” Marin hung up.
Jack considered jogging for about two seconds then decided cryptic didn’t equate with urgent. And his freaking hip was killing him.
By the time he arrived, Marin had her hands on her hips, her foot tapping, and a look that lacked all sympathy for his battered state. “This is not good.”
“Hey—I hurt. You didn’t say I needed to hurry.”
“Not that.” Marin swung open the door to what looked like a study. “This.”
The walls were covered with shelves, but there weren’t any books. Just things. Trinkets. Doodads. Scraps of paper. Rows and rows, covering all four walls.
“What is this?” Jack had an uneasy feeling, but he wasn’t sure why exactly.
“A trophy room, I’d guess.” Marin clutched her arms, hugging herself. “All these pieces have a tiny bit of magic—some kind I’ve never seen—attached to them. I think maybe there’s something of the item’s owner still clinging to the objects.”
Very slowly, Jack said, “But—that’s not bad. If the objects hold an imprint of the previous owners, then why does this room make me want to hide in a closet somewhere?”
A moue of distaste crossed Marin’s face. She shook her head. “I don’t know. All I know is that there’s something bad here.”
Jack nodded to the door and followed Marin out as she left. He took a deep breath out in the hallway. “So—not trying to return these to their former owners, right?”
Marin frantically shook her head. “No. No-no.”
Jack put a hand on her arm. “Hey. It’s okay.” When she nodded, he asked, “Is there a computer?”
“A laptop in the bedroom.” Marin wrinkled her nose. “You can go get it if you want it.”
“That’s fine.” He gave it a little more thought then said, “Okay. I retrieve the laptop, and you burn the trophy room with everything in it. If it’s that bad, we shouldn’t leave that stuff lying around. Any way to make it look like an electrical fire?”
Marin huffed. “Piece of cake.”
“That’s terrifying,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Arson aside, we good with the plan?”
Marin nodded.
“Where’s the bedroom?”
Marin pointed to the last door on the hallway.
Jack made a detour to the bedroom, grabbed the laptop from Conrad’s nightstand, and hoofed it out of there. Meeting Marin in the hallway again, he asked, “We sure we have everything?”
“I’m good. Let me just take care of the tokens or trophies...” Marin’s nostrils flared. “Whatever they are.”
“Um, do I need to leave? Or do we do it from outside?” Again, Jack had a vivid image of a neighborhood engulfed in fire.
Marin sighed. “Seriously? Just wait behind me. I promise not to set you on fire. But don’t chatter. Fire in human form is more difficult.”
Jack pressed his lips together and took a step back.
It was bright. White then brilliant blue then white—like it couldn’t decide. Jack’s eyes burned from the light. He closed and rubbed his eyes. By the time he opened them, there was nothing. “What the hell. Where’s the smoke? The heat? And how did you do that?”
“I flash-burned it at high heat. I told you I wouldn’t set the neighborhood on fire.” Marin shoved on his good shoulder. “Get a move on. We should leave just in case that light freaked anyone out. Remember, you can see a bit through the corner of the curtains.”
Jack stood staring at the blackened room. “And this is going to look like an electrical fire?”
“I made sure the origin is clear. They’re going to wonder what the heck Conrad had on his shelves that burned like liquid lightning—but that’s not our problem.” Marin blew a bright red wisp of hair out of her face. “Makes him look more suspicious, right?”
Jack laughed. “You think?”
By the time they’d driven back to the B&B—with Marin behind the wheel—they’d outlined a slightly different tack to take with Dottie. Tightened up the story, practiced what they’d say. They’d provide the report by phone, have their FBI contact immediately follow up, and make sure there was an in-person meeting scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Dottie was a tougher nut than Milton, but when Jack finally sank into his tub in the wee hours of the morning, he was pretty damn sure they could pull it off.
EPI
LOGUE
“SPI, how can I help you?”
Jack pointed a finger at Marin in warning. She’d started answering The Junk Shop’s second line, the one he very occasionally used for Spirelli Paranormal Investigations, with the SPI abbreviation. It seemed a little over the top.
She just rolled her eyes and ignored him for the most part.
“Yes, sir.” Marin tapped a button and replaced the handset. “Jack, we’re on speaker with Harrington.” Marin walked to the office door and shut it.
No customers in the shop, but the room was warded to be soundproof when the door was shut.
“I have some news for you regarding that laptop you shipped to us.” Harrington sounded tired.
Jack took a seat behind his desk. “Okay. Go ahead.”
He and Marin exchanged a glance. Harrington didn’t usually openly share information, and Jack hadn’t asked for anything in exchange for the laptop. He’d wanted someone who could use the information to have it, so he’d shipped it to Harrington.
“First, your guy had no psychic skills. From what we can tell, he used a combination of research, psychology, cold-reading, and persuasion to achieve the psychic effect.”
“Marin and I had guessed as much.”
“Yes, but I should add that his persuasion talent was incredibly strong,” Marin said.
“What I called to tell you, well—” Harrington cleared his throat. “IPPC would like to thank you for your efforts in this case. We’ll also be forwarding a reward that was posted a number of years ago by a Spanish magic-using family who ran into Conrad using a different alias. I’ll spare you the details, but they were eager to have him caught.”
“Thank you.” Jack knew his tone was flat and he should be more thankful, but something about this case had hit him wrong from the start. It was hard to work up a healthy level of excitement. “There’s more, I assume?”
“Yes.” When he spoke next, Harrington’s tone was brisk. “We’ve calculated his feeding requirements based on information he used to track and plan his...his meals. It appears Blevins required from four to seven victims annually.”