That same imperious tone cracked at him like a whip. “Who owns me?”
“That information is worth more than you’ve got, girlie, and not just to you.”
Chills dappled my skin, a too-late warning the cold place had already overtaken me, and I shifted my weight forward, ready to convince him otherwise. “I must know.”
“Bargain with me then.” He recoiled from whatever he saw on my face, but he kept the tremble from his words. “Offer me something of equal worth.”
“No.” Wu noticed the change in me and shifted closer. “I won’t let her write you a blank check to cash later. Her favors are worth more than your life, and you know it.”
“I know a lot of things, Wu.” Bruster rasped out a chuckle. “More every day. Soon your daddy’s going to know them too.”
“We should be going.” Wu stepped between me and Bruster, blocking my view of him. “There’s nothing more to learn here.”
The clarity afforded me in my current headspace agreed with him, and I curled my fingers around the thumb drive. “You better hope what you know doesn’t come back to bite me,” I warned Bruster. “I bite back.”
Before the iceberg in my chest got any more ideas, we left. The precision with which Wu closed the door behind him set alarm bells clanging in my head.
“Kapoor should have warned us.” Simmering fury boiled over in his tone, thawing the ice encasing my heart through sheer proximity. The daddy comment, whatever it meant, had lit a fire under him. “He should have prepared you.”
“What is Bruster?” I angled my head toward Wu as we rode the elevator down. “I don’t mean his species,” I clarified before receiving the talk about how rude it was to ask that. “Is he a psychic?”
“Bruster doesn’t read minds or predict futures. He maps hearts. He looks into a person, and the naked truth of them peers back. That’s what makes him such a valuable informant. He doesn’t have to interact with his targets to learn about them. All he has to do is get close enough to see into them, to follow the tangle of threads in their souls. There’s not much he can’t learn that way.”
“That is damn creepy.” I pressed a hand flat over my heart like that might protect what pulsed beneath. “Are there more charun like him?”
“On this terrene? No. He’s the last.” The ride stopped, and we exited into the lobby. “They were hunted to extinction here. Only the NSB’s protection keeps him alive.”
I didn’t have to ask him why such brutal measures had been taken. No one wanted their innermost secrets exposed. Still, despite the carrot Bruster had dangled before me, I pitied the man his solitude. It was hard being different and alone. I knew that better than most. “Did he look into you too?”
“My father wanted to know the truth of my heart, and he bargained with Bruster to have me read, but that was a long time ago.”
That explained his flash of temper at the invasion of my privacy, but I wasn’t sure that was what Bruster had been alluding to back there. “Your father sounds like a piece of work.”
The more I learned about Daddy Wu, the less I liked what I heard.
Wu’s smile was brittle and cracking around the edges, but it was there.
“Kapoor has taken a lot about you on faith,” he said, shutting down the topic of his father. “Bruster returning to the area must have been a temptation he couldn’t resist.” Wu slowed his stride. “Bruster is never wrong, and his kind can only speak truth.”
Yet another nail in his coffin. The only thing people wanted less than for someone to know the truth about them was for that person to be honest about what they found. There was comfort in lies, and people dearly loved their comfort.
“Kapoor wanted me read before I became official.” One last check against all those precious balances. “He wanted to be certain he was getting what he paid for.”
“Bruster has wanted to meet you for some time,” Wu admitted. “Kapoor was using you for leverage as a means to other ends. I intervened to keep you separated for as long as possible, but today he took that decision out of my hands.”
Wu cast in the role of guardian angel. Who’d a thunk it? “Why the interest on his part?”
Paranoia swarmed me, wondering what Kapoor had tricked me into revealing to the man. I was willing to bet if he played informant for the NSB, he worked with other factions too. All I could do now was hope whatever he’d learned was worth more to Kapoor when kept as a secret than sold on the open market. Or to one of my sisters.
“There are as many factions among the charun who are eager to bear arms against your sisters as there are outliers salivating for the chance to join in the battle and reduce this world to ash.” He escorted me back to the Bronco. “You’re a powerful symbol cast in either light. Bruster doesn’t ask for favors, ever, but he wanted to evaluate you to make his own determination.”
As much as I hated to admit it, “Kapoor was right to bargain me away for the information we received.”
“It was a strategic choice, yes.” Wu glanced back like he could see Kapoor ensconced in his room, buying more of what Bruster was selling. “But if he wants to build trust, earn your loyalty, he must be transparent. With you and with me.”
“It is odd he let you walk into that blind. Me, I get. But you? That does not compute.”
“You’re my partner.” He placed special emphasis on my but appeared not to notice. “I would have warned you.” He shrugged. “Or I might not have brought you to Bruster at all.”
“That would make it appear as though I have something to hide.” I spread my hands. “I don’t.” I laughed, surprised when I got what he implied. “You think I do?”
“We all have secrets.”
“I can’t argue with you there, but you know all mine. Even the one I keep from my coterie.”
“Ezra,” he murmured without hesitation, as if the name had already been on his mind. “The others don’t know about him.”
“They might. They keep a close eye on me.” I might be letting guilt gnaw on my bones over nothing. I might be endangering them rather than protecting them. I might be doing more harm than good on all fronts, but I was doing the best I could to protect the ones I cared about, and that was all anyone could ask of me. “But I haven’t told them.”
Wu leaned against the Bronco. “Any particular reason why?”
“I want to bring them answers.” I scuffed my shoe on the asphalt. “I don’t want to raise more questions. I’m already in doubt in everyone’s mind to one extent or another for various reasons.” I pulled out my keys. “For once, I want to walk in and say, ‘This is a problem I had, and I solved it.’”
“That’s not how coteries work.” He expelled a soft laugh. “I understand your fear, though.”
As much as I wanted to protest fear wasn’t the issue, it was a lie, and we both knew it. The deeper I waded into this new world, the higher unfamiliar waters lapped against my throat, and the more in danger I became of drowning.
Ezra had saved me, over and over. And he had abandoned me, over and over. His hand could be the one that reached out and hauled me onto dry land, or it could be the one that shoved my head underwater for good. Either way, I had three hundred and fifty odd days until I learned for sure. Ezra was nothing if not predictable in his schedule.
Unless I found him first.
The display on my phone glowed, and I half expected the familiar briiiiiiing, as though speaking of Ezra might have summoned him, but no such luck. “Boudreau here.”
“Hey, it’s Dawson. I got an update for you.”
Awareness I had no right to his confidence didn’t stop me from grabbing this temporary lifeline with both hands. “Oh?”
“Summers mentioned her scene stank of citronella, and it’s been bugging the shit out of me ever since. It’s an all-natural bug repellent, right? Well, I got to thinking. We have mosquitos in the south until after the first hard freeze, and we’re months away from that. Ms. Orvis worked outside a lot given her profession, so I figured she
must be using the stuff to keep the pests away from her kids and customers.”
“Makes sense.”
“The thing is, I remembered why it was pestering me. The Culberson fire had that same grassy scent, but it’s every-damn-where these days. Bug spray, mosquito coils, bracelets, patches, you name it. It’s one of those smells that outdoorsy people get blind to until someone points it out to us.”
“The restaurant had an outdoor patio.” The first time I visited, I remembered thinking the built-in benches were a nice touch. “Are you sure you weren’t smelling the detonation of a dozen tiki torches?”
“See, that’s why I overlooked it. That and – hell, we had multiple eyewitness accounts of the event.” Papers shuffled in the background. “Here’s the thing, I had my guys run some tests for giggles, and we hit pay dirt. Turns out the Culberson fire had two origins.”
“Ivashov in the restaurant with the drip torch and…?”
“Suspect B with a few hundred rounds of homemade accelerant.”
“Rounds?”
“As in circular. As in cotton. Probably as in facial cleanser pads.”
The tender muscles in my gut clenched as tight as a fist. “What type of accelerant are we talking here?”
“One of my guys is big into survivalist crap. Camps out in the wilds, lives off the land, the whole nine yards. He showed me the pouch of supplies he’s allowed to carry during his challenges, and there were these discs he buys from some online retailer. They’re waterproof fire starters.” A chair groaned, and I imagined him leaning back at his desk. “He starts telling me how much they cost and how some of the guys make their own using supplies they can pick up at the store.”
A panicked sound clawed up my throat that he mistook for encouragement.
“What happens is they soak the cotton in an accelerant. Our perps chose citronella-scented tiki torches. Once the material is saturated, they dump the discs in a crockpot of melted wax to waterproof them. The result is a cheap, efficient, and untraceable fire starter.”
Waxy Wonders.
Dawson was grocery-listing all those seemingly random items Aunt Nancy had left spread on the table in the backyard. The backyard, which had been planted with jasmine purchased at Orvis Nursery days prior to its brush with flames. The connection with the Culbersons was older, but it was still there. Aunt Nancy had a solid link to the Hensarlings as well. One I hadn’t remembered until now. The family allowed her to harvest cotton bolls the pickers missed for the church kids to use when they made Christmas angels.
Dad still had a few of mine crammed in storage boxes in the attic of the farmhouse.
The cop in me hated coincidence, didn’t buy into them, but the child in me, who viewed Nancy as a mother figure, was thrashing her head in denial even as the math started adding up to a grim possibility.
Heart climbing up my throat, I wet my lips. “Have you taken this to Rixton?”
“Not yet,” he grumbled. “He’s not answering his phone.”
“I need to run.” I got behind the wheel of the Bronco, and Wu slid in beside me, no questions asked. “Thanks for keeping me updated.” I ended the call with an impatient thumb. “We’ve got a problem.”
“So I assumed.”
“Sarcasm is your default setting. I get that. I can respect that, appreciate it even, but not right now.”
Fingers poised over the phone screen, about to send out an SOS, I remembered Santiago and Miller were both out of commission. With Thom playing doctor and Cole at the bunkhouse with Portia, I had no shadow tonight.
Damn and double damn.
“That was the CFD arson investigator. He’s located a secondary origin for the Culberson fire. Odds are good he’s going to find evidence that links the Hensarling and Orvis fires to that one too.” My hand lifted to my throat like rubbing the column might help me suck in enough air to keep my vision clear. “The accelerant used is a fire starter popular with hunters, fishermen, and other outdoorsy types.” I formed the words, I could feel my lips moving, but no sound emerged. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Aunt Nancy makes them for the fishing club. All the members use them.”
“That leaves us with a wide suspect pool,” Wu said. “What am I missing?”
“I built her a pergola last weekend.” A pinhead of ice stabbed me in the heart. “She had trays of plants from Orvis. I asked if she knew the owner, and she said Mr. and Mrs. Orvis, as in the ex-husband’s parents, attended her church. That’s how she knew about the nursery.”
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” His calm almost shattered mine.
“Ida Bell, a member of War’s coterie, also attended church with her.” I clutched the wheel with stiff fingers. “The night War came after me, she used Dad as bait. I had stashed him with the Trudeaus, but she got her hooks in him. I never asked how. I didn’t want to involve them, and Dad wasn’t in any condition to answer questions.” That speck of ice spread through my veins. “What if…?”
What if… What if… What if…
The shouting in my head refused to be silenced long enough for me to make sense of my thoughts.
“You believe your aunt may be compromised,” Wu said, filling the dark silence. “That she might have delivered your father to War.”
I parked at the curb outside the Trudeau house and flung open my door. One leg was on the pavement when Wu grasped my hand and shackled me in place.
“Let me go.”
His grip turned bruising as I struggled. “You can’t confront her alone.”
“I won’t leave Dad in there another minute.” I twisted to face him. “Or my uncle. We have to get them out.”
“Your father has been living there for more than a week without complications.” Wu reeled me in closer. “We have time to evaluate the situation before we —”
A snarl rippled through my lip as it curled over my teeth, and I salivated in anticipation of his next protest, of the bite I would take out of him if he tried stopping me.
“We go in together.” Gold flared in the depths of his brown eyes in response, a metallic and unforgiving sheen that glittered in warning. “You do as I say, or I remove you from the equation.” His long fingers closed around my throat, caging me. His thumb stroked my carotid in a slow and easy glide that turned my blood sluggish. “Understand?”
I held his inhuman stare, scarcely daring to breathe, afraid my heart might stop altogether. “Yes.”
“We go in together.” Wu pried each finger from my skin as though not squeezing required great effort. “If anyone asks, we’ll tell them we ate dinner together.”
“I need a weapon.” Faster than he could react, I rallied my strength and slid out the open door. I lowered the tailgate, and a sense of relief cascaded through me when I palmed the shotgun. I grabbed a box of rounds and the cleaning kit before rejoining Wu. “Let’s skip dinner and say we hit the range.”
Wu growled his approval then joined me on the curb.
Call me paranoid, but Sariah’s hello, how are you? routine had set my skin itching at the start of the night, and it hadn’t stopped yet. The only way to scratch was to look in my aunt’s eyes and see if a monster looked back.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Trudeau house, with its cheery front door and immaculate landscaping, looked the same as always. I wanted to laugh off my unease, wanted to tell Wu it was all good, wanted to climb on my air mattress and damn the consequences. But Dad was in there. And this enemy of mine wore so many faces.
“I can go in alone,” Wu offered.
“We can’t risk tipping her off.” I shot down that idea. “You walk me to the door, I invite you to stay for coffee, and we go from there.” As far as plans go, mine was thinner than a sheet of paper. “Aunt Nancy can’t resist playing hostess. Isolating her shouldn’t be hard.”
Following coterie protocol, I shot them a group text outlining our plan and tacked on a plea that the guys check in with the rest of my family before catching up to us.
W
ith that final detail handled, Wu and I hit the walkway, two robots going through the motions, and I let us in the house. I checked the kitchen as we passed, but it stood empty. A voiceover spilled from the living room, and light flickered in the hall as scenes onscreen changed. I crept forward, oxygen a solid block in my lungs, until I drank in the sight of Dad asleep on the couch. I kept inching closer until the steady rise and fall of his chest became apparent.
I glanced back at Wu, gratitude turning my knees to water, and started shaking my head.
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
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