Again, out loud?
“Could you be any more of a bitch?”
“I’m sorry, Flan. I mean that, I sw—”
But Flannery huffed and ended the call.
So much for Thea’s calm. And for her good mood.
But speaking of Flannery’s wedding, Thea thought she’d better hightail it over to Personal Services and take care of the final fitting on her dress—something she was pretty sure she’d told Flannery she’d already done.
Her phone rang again just as she was walking into the Personal Services office. She answered without even looking at it; it had been maybe seven minutes, just about the right length of time for one of Flannery’s dramatic sulks.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Thea said.
“Why? Did you have something to do with it?” Holgersen. In his not-calm mode.
“Have something to do with what?” Thea asked.
Shit. There were so many options. Have something to do with torturing a fury and a human into giving her information? Have something to do with abducting a doctor and her young son?
“What are you sorry for?” Holgersen countered.
“I thought you were my cousin.” Thea sighed and walked back out of the building for better reception. “What do you want, Holgersen?”
“So this wasn’t you guys? Trying to get the Concerned Citizens For A Fury-Free County off your back?”
“What wasn’t us guys?” Thea asked. “Is this about Seth Bates? Did you find anything out?”
“No,” Holgersen said. “I didn’t find anything out. Want to know why I didn’t find anything out?”
“What I’d really like is to hang up and leave you to your blustering,” Thea said. “Since you don’t really seem to need me for it.”
You’re kind of quipping again, aren’t you?
Holgersen was too upset to notice. “I didn’t find anything out because I am no longer investigating anything having to do with Hemlock Heights at all.”
Thea frowned. “They took you off the case entirely? Were you asking too many questions about furies?”
“They didn’t take me off the case,” Holgersen said. “There is no case. The case is closed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Go read the news.”
He ended the call.
“Why the fuck is everyone hanging up on me today?” Thea hesitated, then decided that as long as she was here, she might as well do what she came for first, and walked back into Personal Services.
The old fury behind the counter wore horn-rimmed glasses, a name tag that announced her as Zelda, and a shockingly large, bright teal bow in her hair. Thea tried not to stare at the latter as she told her what she needed.
“Oh yes,” Zelda said. “I know all about Nero’s wedding. We’ve been working hard to make sure everyone has cocktail dresses and nice suits.” She peered at Thea over her glasses. “Of course, most people already have cocktail dresses and nice suits, but some of us find we’ve gained a bit around the middle since the last time we were called upon to wear them, am I right?” She giggled.
Thea nodded in agreement. “But I didn’t have one at all. They were making it. I was just supposed to come for a last fitting.”
“Let me go find it,” Zelda said. “I’ll be right back.”
Thea paced while she waited. What had Holgersen been talking about? All she really wanted to do was get back to her residence and find out. She didn’t much care what she wore to Flannery’s wedding.
But she should care. Flannery had told her to wear whatever she wanted. Flannery, who had been planning a wedding with Pete that would have put Thea in peach taffeta and a hooped petticoat. Thea should be grateful. And she should be a good cousin and a good maid of honor.
She would go to Aunt Bridget’s tomorrow, she decided. Help Flannery with her packing, and whatever else she needed.
“This will look stunning on you,” Zelda said as she came back out front, a black dress over one arm.
Thea looked at it, then sighed. “I don’t suppose we have time for me to change my mind?”
Zelda’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “Now? But the wedding is next weekend!”
“I know, and I’m sorry. But is there any way you can do a yellow one, with the same measurements? Like a buttery, sunshiny kind of yellow?”
That would look awful against her skin, but it was Flannery’s favorite color.
Zelda was, not surprisingly, delighted with the idea of adding some color. “Well, if it’s to bring a little bit of sunshine into the bride’s day, I suppose we could do a rush order. Everyone always wants black, you know. But I don’t believe in wearing black to weddings. I’m old-fashioned, I guess.”
“Thank you so much,” said Thea, and started to turn away. “I know my cousin will really appreciate it.”
“Wait!” Zelda grabbed Thea by the elbow before she could get out the door. “We still need to do the fitting! We’ll just have to get this dress right, and then I’ll copy it exactly in the yellow. There won’t be any time left for alterations once it’s done.”
Nearly an hour passed before Thea finally extricated herself from Zelda’s enthusiastic care. She rushed back to her residence and sat down with her laptop to check the news.
“Son of a BITCH!” she shouted a few minutes later.
She swiped out with one wing and sent the (thankfully unlit) candle on her coffee table flying, a handy alternative to throwing her laptop, which was what she really wanted to do.
“New evidence, my ass!”
New evidence suggested that Boyd Lexington, a resident of Hemlock Heights, and his wife Cindy had been manufacturing a chemical agent of some kind right there in the basement of their quiet suburban home. Authorities wouldn’t comment officially, but sources close to the investigation anonymously acknowledged to reporters that they didn’t think that chemical agent was intended as a street drug. Rather, they suspected ties to domestic terrorists, and the development of a biological weapon.
Those same sources theorized that the tragedy at Hemlock Heights had occurred when somebody—perhaps one of the Lexington children—had managed to breach the security of the basement lab and somehow set off this weapon.
Thea was almost as angry as Holgersen, although she couldn’t have said why. She should have been glad, when she thought about it. This would take the pressure off Hexing House, and furies in general. It would take the pressure off her. Even more people would dismiss her picture as a hoax now. The rumors would die down. The whole thing would go away.
Except it won’t go away for Marshal and Laurel Bowman. It won’t go away for Talbott Lexington.
And it won’t go away for Todd Caulfield, or Mr. Fanatic, or the Concerned Citizens For A Fury-Free County.
They’ll think Hexing House covered this up. They’ll think we’ve gotten away with something.
They’ll be outraged. And they won’t let it go.
Someone had gotten away with something, all right. And Thea was outraged, too.
Megaira and Fury Unlimited had unleashed the superhex—a hex they never should have been able to develop in the first place—on an unsuspecting neighborhood full of innocent civilians.
They’d killed people at Hemlock Heights. They’d left Talbott Lexington orphaned and alone.
And they’d done it all to cover up a disease they had created. A disease young Julius Forrester was suffering from right now.
A disease that, no matter what Langdon said, Thea still partly suspected she was suffering from, too.
They couldn’t be allowed to walk away from all that.
And if Alecto didn’t see to it that they didn’t, Thea might just take matters into her own hands.
Thea taped another packing box together and pretended not to stare at Pete from under her lashes.
“Seriously, Pete, this is almost too far,” she said.
“What is?” Pete put a stack of sweaters into a box of his own.
“Coming to help her
pack?” Thea said. “Your ex-fiancée, before her wedding to another man?”
Pete shrugged. “Bridget said she could use the help.”
“Does this never bother you at all?” Thea asked. “After everything that happened?”
“Everything that happened is what bothers me,” Pete said. “Or bothered me. But we’ve moved on. Flannery changed, and I’m glad she did.”
Thea sat back on her heels and looked at him, waiting until he looked back. “But she didn’t change for you,” she said quietly.
Pete smiled. “Is it that you want me to be pissed off?”
“No,” Thea said. Was it? She didn’t really know why she was picking at this wound. “I guess I just want to know how you really feel.”
“How I really feel?” Pete considered her. Finally he said, “Fine. How I really feel is, I didn’t come today because I thought Bridget needed help or because I’m happy for Flannery. I knew you were coming.”
Thea turned back to her box. “Pete—”
“And that,” Pete interrupted, “What you’re doing right now? Is why I didn’t say so in the first place.”
“Well, it’s kind of complicated, don’t you think?”
“The fury thing?” Pete shrugged. “Doesn’t seem all that complicated for Flan and Nero.”
“But it was already complicated for us,” said Thea. “Before.”
“Because of Flannery,” Pete said. “But that’s not an issue anymore, is it?”
Thea sighed. “Maybe it wasn’t really because of Flannery, then.”
“Maybe you’d prefer I was some big name actor.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Pete—”
Flannery came bounding up the stairs and into her room, a sheet of labels in one hand and her phone in the other. “Thea, you might want to get back.”
Thea hoped her relief at the interruption didn’t show too plainly on her face. Not that Pete would necessarily be able to interpret it if it did. They’d been close since they were ten years old. They were each great at knowing what the other one was thinking. But they were pretty crap at knowing what the other one was feeling.
What would she have said, if Flannery hadn’t walked in just then?
Pete, I know we’ve danced around each other our whole lives, each waiting for the other to be free, but the thing is, I can’t be in a relationship just now. I might have a disease that occasionally turns me into a vicious monster.
Or I might not have a disease. I might just be a vicious monster.
“Hello?” Flannery said. “Did you hear me?”
Thea smiled weakly at her cousin. “Sorry, I thought you were on your phone. Were you talking to me?”
“Uh, yes. Hence my saying Thea?” Flannery narrowed her eyes and looked from Thea to Pete. “Did I just interrupt something?”
“Yeah,” Pete said. “My break time.” He lifted a stack of boxes and left the room.
“What’s going on?” Flannery asked. Her face was open, concerned. But there were too many years of Pete standing between them. Flannery was the last person Thea would ever discuss him with.
“We’re just getting cranky,” Thea said. “Need a snack, probably. What were you saying when you came in?”
“Oh, shit, you put it out of my mind.” Flannery held up her phone. “I just got off the phone with Nero. You might want to get back. Apparently there’s been some excitement.”
“What happened?”
“The Concerned Citizens For A Fury-Free County,” Flannery said. “They protested again.”
“They’re mad about the cover-up, I expect,” Thea said. “Alecto can handle them.”
“That’s just it, Alecto did handle them. Nero was on his way over to the gate when I called him, so he wasn’t sure of the details, but it sounds like someone may have gotten hurt.”
“Just what we need. Tell Pete I said goodbye, will you?”
Thea had just taken off for Hexing House when her own phone rang. She perched in a tree in Aunt Bridget’s orchard to answer it.
It was Langdon, sounding fussy. “I know you’re with your family today, and I’m sorry to interrupt. But I think you’d better come back here.”
“So I hear,” Thea said. “What happened?”
“The protest got out of hand, and now this police detective won’t leave me alone to attend to my patient.”
“Police detective? You mean Holgersen?”
“That sounds right,” said Langdon. “Some Scandinavian name, anyway. I understand from some of my staff that you have a rapport with him.”
He understood from his staff? What the hell kind of rumors were flying around the colony these days? Thea had mostly spoken to Holgersen on the phone, and as far as she recalled, he’d only been on campus one time.
“Uh…” Thea began.
“Could you just come and talk to him? Try to get him out of our hair?”
“But where—”
“I have to go,” Langdon said. “Thanks, Thea.”
“—is Alecto?” Thea finished, although she knew she was talking (once again) to dead air.
Where was Alecto, that Langdon would be the one asking Thea to handle Holgersen? That Holgersen would need handling at all? Surely Alecto could deal with the detective herself.
Unless Alecto was the patient he referred to.
Thea walked into the Wellness building less than fifteen minutes later. Darnell pointed over his shoulder. “They’re all in Patient Room 3.”
They turned out to be Langdon, Holgersen, and Alecto. Alecto was sitting on the exam table, while Langdon hovered over her with a jar of cream. A bandage covered her eyes. Around the edges of the gauze, and trailing down the left side of her face in an obvious splatter pattern, was a blistering burn the color of a stormy sky.
“What the hell happened?” Thea asked.
“Ah, Thea,” said Langdon. “Wonderful. Maybe you can take the detective into the next room to speak to him?”
“The detective is not going anywhere,” Holgersen said. He gestured at Alecto. “This woman, or fury, whatever, is—”
“—not going to be arrested and dragged away in cuffs without medical care!” Langdon said.
“Is not going to be arrested at all,” Alecto said in a voice that shook with rage. “Much less dragged away.”
“Nobody is talking about dragging anyone away,” said Holgersen.
“So much the better,” said Langdon. “You can talk to her when I’ve finished with her.”
“I can answer his questions while you work on me,” Alecto said. “I have nothing to hide.”
“That is hardly the point—” Langdon began.
“What the hell happened?” Thea asked again.
They all started talking at once.
Thea raised her voice to be heard over them. “Let me guess. Alecto and Detective Holgersen got into some stupid pissing contest and got each other’s tempers up. And now he won’t even wait outside until she’s tended to, even though Alecto clearly is willing to answer his questions, and just as clearly not going to fly out the window—especially since there is no window in this room—and escape her own colony?”
Alecto started to protest, but Holgersen said, “Actually, that’s pretty accurate.”
“Okay,” said Thea. “Detective, why don’t we leave the room so Langdon can do his job? We’ll wait right outside the door, how will that be?”
“Fine,” Holgersen said. “I have a few questions for you anyway.”
“Great,” said Thea.
As she turned away, Langdon mouthed his thanks at her. Thea smiled and waited for Holgersen to follow her out, then closed the door behind her.
She leaned against the wall in the hallway and crossed her arms. “You know,” she said, “this case is unraveling you.”
“You don’t even know me,” Holgersen said.
“I know you were like a block of ice the first time I met you. You’ve gotten steadily more
hot-headed ever since.”
“Yeah, well.” Holgersen sighed.
Thea asked for the third time, “What the hell happened?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out,” Holgersen said. “Most of it had already happened by the time I got here. As near as I can tell, Alecto came out to address the protesters—”
“The same ones?” Thea asked. “Caulfield? Agnew?”
Holgersen looked a little put off by the interruption, but for once he answered her question. “Yes. Things got a little heated, and someone—not Caulfield or Agnew, a Mrs. Susan Billings—flung something at Alecto’s face. It appears to have been some sort of acid.”
Thea gasped. “Is she blinded?”
“Langdon isn’t sure yet. He thinks it’s probably only temporary.”
“Well, I imagine he’d know more if you’d left him in peace to do his job!” Thea said. “Why are you here harassing Alecto instead of arresting this Billings woman?”
“Because this Billings woman is dead.”
Thea blinked at him. “Shit. Alecto killed her?” It was a stupid question to ask a police detective, but it just slipped out.
“That’s what I want to ask you,” Holgersen said.
“How the hell should I know? I wasn’t even there.”
“Let me back up,” Holgersen said. “Apparently things got chaotic after the acid was thrown. Some of your security team were there, there were a couple of brief scuffles, but eventually most of the humans started to disperse. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Mrs. Billings wound up crushed underneath an old-growth oak that was torn up by its roots. That fact is undisputed, but eyewitness accounts differ as to how the tree ended up on top of her.”
Thea stiffened. “Okay.”
“Some witnesses saw Alecto make a gesture. Some say she brought that tree up and threw it.”
“Okay,” Thea said again.
“You don’t want to comment on that?”
“How can I? I wasn’t there,” Thea said again. “But off the top of my head, I’d say it’s a pretty hysterical witness that thinks a blinded woman was able to throw a tree. Accurately enough to hit a target, I might add.”
“So your kind don’t have telekinetic powers as part of your mythical creature toolkit,” Holgersen said.
Lasting Fury (Hexing House Book 2) Page 12