Maggie was going to despise me for the choice I’d made, for ruining the life she’d built, but as long as she was alive to hate me, there was a chance at redemption. I had to believe that. I would go crazy with guilt if I didn’t.
“You look thoughtful this morning.” Aunt Nancy joined me at the table carrying a bowl full of cereal with sliced fruit layering the top that she set in front of me. “Did that nice young man put this look on your face?”
Wu was not nice, young, or a man. “I was thinking about Maggie.”
“Oh, tater tot.” She reached across the table and covered my hand, hers chilled from the cold bowl. “You didn’t get bad news, did you?”
“No.” There had been no updates on the case. Kapoor was handling the fallout, which meant he would soon meet with Portia and Maggie to discuss what lie he could feed her family while causing the fewest ripples. More than likely, her case would be marked cold or an unclaimed body would be used to fake her death. Either outcome would gut her family, but one offered hope that normalcy might one day return while the other was a permanent solution. “I’m just missing her. Rixton is doing his best to fill the gap, Sherry is too, but they’ve got Nettie. They need to be focused on her, not me.” The truth of it was, “I wish there was more I could do.”
“We’re keeping her in our prayers, and Special Agent Kapoor is doing his best to find her. That’s all any of us can do.”
“At the risk of being put to work if I admit I’m bored – I’m bored.” I dug into the breakfast she’d made me. “I have work I could be doing, but I want to get out of my head for a bit.”
“You can’t work at the house today?” Not an ounce of censure threaded her voice. She wasn’t cracking the whip to get us gone. It was only natural that she would ask, considering I had spent all my spare time making repairs, which backed me straight into a white lie. “I’m waiting on an order to arrive. There’s not much left to do now that the bay window is in without those supplies.”
“Well, in that case, you can help me with the garden.” A broad smile stretched her cheeks. “If I had known I’d have a worker bee with me today, I would have picked up supplies yesterday. Would you mind driving me down to Mervin’s? I have the worst headache today. I don’t want to chance getting behind the wheel.”
Between shoveling in bites, I reassured her, “I’m happy to play chauffer.”
Migraines were no joke, and Aunt Nancy had suffered from the vestibular kind all her life.
“I bought some Confederate jasmine plants earlier this week. I would love a trellis for them to climb. Your eyes are better than Harry’s these days, your hands steadier too.” She indicated I should carry my bowl with me into the backyard as she outlined her plans. “The man won’t wear his glasses, and the last time I asked for his help, I ended up with the Leaning Tower of Pisa for tomato cages.” She indicated a few plastic trays filled with white flowers stacked on the porch. “Come smell these for inspiration.”
I did as I was told, and the perfumed sweetness filled my lungs. “They’re lovely.”
“Jasmine is my favorite flower. Always has been.” She smoothed the peeling label with its mason jar logo back in place. “When I saw these at the nursery, I couldn’t resist.”
A day of hard labor, where I could turn off my brain and follow orders, was just what the doctor ordered. We finished breakfast then hit the home improvement store, where I grabbed the supplies for what she had in mind.
More than a dose of much-needed normalcy, I relaxed into the work, feeling like I was earning my keep for the first time since arriving at the Trudeaus’. While neither my aunt nor uncle would see it that way, Dad had raised me to pull my own weight. While he might have meant it metaphorically, I was pretty sure as Aunt Nancy transformed her simple trellis design into a full-scale pergola, I hauled enough lumber to make it literal.
That night I fell into bed aching, sunburned and exhausted, and I slept better than I had in weeks.
Ungluing my eyes required more effort than I was willing to expend. So when my cell lost its damn mind around three in the morning, I groped on the floor until I hit cool plastic and brought it to my ear. “Hmmph?”
Rixton greeted me with “There’s been another fire.”
“Where?” Canton was running out of real estate fast.
“Madison.”
That woke me up enough to slit my eyelids. “That’s not in our jurisdiction.”
“Jill Summers, the arson investigator for MFD, heard about the Hensarling and Culberson fires and gave Dawson a call. He returned the favor, and I agreed we’d meet them.”
There was a weary resignation to his tone that set the hairs on my nape prickling. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“There are five bodies. Four kids.” He cleared his throat and started again. “The mother locked them in the basement with her, and the house burned down around them.”
All vestiges of sleep evaporated. “I’m getting dressed now.” I climbed to my feet and started looking for a clean uniform. “Where do you want to meet?”
“I’ll pick you up. I’m ten minutes out.”
Ending the call, I tossed the phone on the air mattress and suited up for work. A quick twist of my wrist got my hair out of my face, and I stomped on my boots. Unsure what we were about to walk into, I slung my backpack with the Culberson file and my electronics over my shoulder.
Dad was snoring as I crept past the living room and backed out the front door into a wall of hard muscle. I jumped at the unexpected contact.
“You’re leaving early,” Cole rumbled when I whirled to face him. “Rixton called?”
“Yeah,” I said, voice tight. “There’s been another fire. This one in Madison.”
“Anything we can do to help?”
Reflex prompted me to demur, but I was learning demons – charu – got huffy when their help was declined. “We’re trying to source the manufacturer on the drip torches used in the first two fires. The labels were burned off, but there should be serial numbers stamped on the bottoms. I’m not sure if the same device was used to start this fire, but it seems likely if we were called. I can get you that information in a few hours if you’re interested.”
“Text me when you know something. Any photos you can spare will help Miller pinpoint connections between the three.”
I worried my bottom lip between my teeth, aware I was crossing lines. Sharing information on an ongoing police investigation was a big no-no, but the department brought in consultants all the time. Human laws wouldn’t help us combat an inhuman crime spree. For that, we needed the charun perspective and all the help they could give us.
“I’ll do one better. I’ll email him copies of our notes.” Not that he needed them. Miller was a research fiend. “That will save him a few keyboard strokes.”
“All right. I’ll let him know to be on the lookout.” Cole paid the road particular attention. “I’ll be close if you need me.”
I used his distraction to study his profile, and my fingertips itched to trace the lumps down the bridge of his many-times-broken nose. “You drew babysitting duty tonight, huh?”
“We rotate.” Cole returned his attention to me. “Would you have preferred Miller?”
“No,” I blurted. “It’s nice. Seeing you.”
Nice was probably not the best word choice. Every single time we bumped into each other, one of us left the confrontation raw.
Shifting his weight onto his rear foot, he gave me breathing room between him and the door at my back. “I should have told you I was sending Thom in my place.”
“I was —” relieved, disappointed, relieved, disappointed, relieved “— not expecting him. It all worked out, though.”
“He told us you handled yourself out there.” What looked an awful lot like pride lit up his face. “He said you went straight for the snout.”
“More like the snout went straight for me.” A shudder rippled through me. “It was like a bad first date where the guy is c
onvinced the cost of dinner has purchased him a goodnight kiss.”
His voice grated. “Speaking from experience?”
An unwelcome realization dawned on me. Since Cole was on guard duty tonight, he had tagged along on my dinner undate with Wu. He must have sat in the parking lot, idling in his SUV, while I tried black sesame ice cream for the first time and made nice with the man who was about to become a stylish fixture in my life.
“A little,” I admitted, thinking of Joey Tacoma and the horror stories Maggie had shared with me over the years. “Most boys we – on me.” After Joey, none of them even tried. “Now Mags, she could tell stories that curled your toes. She was the social butterfly.” Use of the past tense caused the words to get hung in my throat. “One upside to discovering I’m charun? I can blame all those failed first dates on interspecies incompatibility.”
Much to my surprise, Cole laughed. A soft huff that managed to sound as startled as the smile I gave him in return. That’s when it hit me. We had been carrying on a conversation, one spiked with landmines of personal information, yet he wasn’t grinding his molars into dust.
All those words he always seemed to be chewing over, the ones stuck in his craw, well, maybe a few had escaped in my yard the day we clocked that six-minute mile to the pond.
“I read your report.” He eased back another step, and I followed him to the curb. “I had no idea the NSB was microchipping the lower charun. That’s valuable information. It will make identifying them easier in the future.”
“You already placed an order for top of the line chip readers, didn’t you?”
“Santiago is hacking their systems as we speak,” he said, which was answer enough. “He plans on mapping their infrastructure and using it to construct our own information portal.”
Hearing that didn’t surprise me. “How did he gain access?”
“Thom hunted down another lower charun, tranquilized it with his saliva, then removed the microchip while it was unconscious. Santiago took it from there.”
“Well, since it looks like we’re stuck with Wu, at least he’s good for something.” Even if he didn’t know it yet. “That reminds me. He and I talked about more than the ubaste. We discussed the fires too. I’d like to bounce some of our theories off you later if you have time.”
Cole pulled out his cell. “I’ll text Thom and let him know I’m taking his shift.”
“You don’t have to go that far,” I insisted. “We can hash it out over the phone.”
“I don’t mind.”
I fidgeted with the strap on my pack to give my hand something to do besides itching for an excuse to touch him, and the movement caught his eye.
Cole fixated on the strap, no, on my hand. “What is that?”
I looked down and spotted the origami ring. “Oh.” I flexed my fingers like I was just as surprised to see it as him. “Wu made it for me out of the fifty I tried to use to pay my half of the bill.”
“You’re still wearing it,” he said flatly.
“It’s cute.” And I was an idiot for not removing it sooner when any member of my coterie would sniff it out and know who made it and wonder why I had yet to unfold the bill and return it to my wallet. Whimsy was not an excuse they would buy. “I shouldn’t have worn it out, though.”
“No,” he agreed, “you shouldn’t have.”
“It’s not a mark of ownership.” Though, according to Thom, Wu was all about marking his territory where I was concerned. “It’s just a fun thing.”
“With charun, it’s never just a fun thing. Gifts carry meanings.”
“There.” I slid off the ring and put it in my pocket. “Better?”
Without answering, he popped the snaps on his leather bracelet, exposing the thick ridges of heavy scar tissue built up around the rose gold band that circled his wrist. Holding out his offering, he waited until I extended my arm in acceptance before securing it in place. The band was four inches wide and sized to fit him. On me, it looked more like an archery bracer. His heat still warmed the metal fasteners, and his scent was engrained after so many years of wear. It was all I could do not to bring it to my nose and inhale the potent combination of leather and man.
Gifts carry meanings.
What did this one say?
The leather bracelet and his matching watch kept his bands, Conquest’s mark of ownership, concealed. Exposing them could mean so many things. That he was no longer ashamed of the connection, that he no longer cared to hide who and what he was, or simply that he had five more tucked away in a drawer at the bunkhouse and could afford to lose one.
“Cole.” I spun it around my wrist. “I…”
Headlights flashed in the distance, their familiar shape giving away the driver’s identity.
“That’s Rixton.” I glanced back at Cole and found him fixated on where I had tucked my arm against my chest, cradling the gift he’d given me like it was precious, and it was. Whatever the symbolism to him, it meant everything to me. “Guess I’ll see you around?”
“Not if I do my job well you won’t.”
With a nod, he walked away, leaving me to be eaten alive by my curiosity as he made a quick turn down Burberry Street then dipped into the shadows cast by a hedge acting as a privacy fence on the corner. I was searching for signs of where he’d gone when Rixton slowed in front of me, lowering his window as he rolled to a stop.
He leaned out and followed my line of sight. “Who was that?”
Rixton must be distracted if he wasn’t calling me out on the mysterious who being Cole.
“A friend,” I murmured, tucking my hand behind my back.
Without meaning to, I had set him up to crack a joke at my expense, something along the lines of “Yeah, your boyfriend” but he didn’t rib me as I joined him. There was too much darkness gathered in the cab for him to dispel it with humor. The numbers struck me again.
Four kids. Four.
No wonder Rixton had been rendered mute.
“I spoke to Dawson before I left the house,” Rixton said at last. “He’s driving down too.”
Made sense. He would have to liaise with his counterpart in Madison. “Has he given you anything on our cases yet?”
“The Hensarling Farms fire was started in the southeastern corner of the field. Wind speed and direction must have been calculated for maximum damage. That or Rowland got lucky. The fire swept up and across the property, destroying ninety percent of the crops before the fire department got it contained. The same accelerant responsible for starting the initial blaze was found in the drip torch basin.” He shook his head. “For Dawson, it’s an open and shut case.”
“Or it was until the Culberson fire,” I prompted, hoping I wasn’t hearing what I thought I was hearing.
“The second fire destroyed a home and a homebased business. Most of the livestock survived, and there were no fatalities. The only injury was the arsonist, and he’s expected to make a full recovery baring any complications from his burns.” A scowl cut his mouth. “Dawson warned we can’t rule out the possibility someone read about Hensarling and got inspired, but a copycat doesn’t feel right to me.”
“I agree.” The incident felt too deliberate considering the previous fire. “Plus, the odds of the Culbersons finding a scapegoat willing to torch himself within twenty-four hours are slim.” Even then, it took fanatical devotion or the promise of a fat payoff to prompt that type of sacrifice. “What do we know about the third fire?”
“The body count,” he said gruffly. “The rest we’ll learn when we get there.”
There turned out to be a grassy plot on the edge of town. I counted six industrial greenhouses, each spaced within a dozen feet of each other. A mason jar had been hand-painted on the side of the nearest one, and a cheerful green sprout pushed up through its open mouth. Bold letters spelling out Orvis Nursery filled the glass in lieu of dirt. The siding had melted like wax in some parts and warped in others from the heat, but the structures themselves appeared stable. The same
couldn’t be said for the small home positioned behind the business.
Charred lumber rose like crooked fingers from the cooling ash scattered across the grassy yard. I got the impression the house had been two stories but compact, and it sat on a thick concrete slab. Firemen stood beside their engine, lights flashing, but the blaze had run its course. They were packing up to leave as we arrived.
A short woman dressed in a navy pantsuit stood about three yards away from the house with a camera in her hands. She walked around a spot on the ground, snapping pictures. The shock of red hair identified her as Jill Summers, the arson investigator for the Madison Fire Department. This was her scene.
“Ms. Summers,” Rixton greeted her. “Dawson invited us down. I hope you don’t mind.”
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