The NightShade Forensic Files: Echo and Ember (Book 4)

by A. J. Scudiere

  “We have to try. Our killer wouldn’t have given up because the fence was tall. We’re just going to have to clean up before we knock on doors.” The woods behind her had been a bitch to get through. There was no easy parking, and they’d had to go through the gate of another community, flashing badges, oh joy. Then they cut through the remaining trees to this.

  Walking the perimeter of the fencing, they decided that through was better than over. Over didn’t look like much of an option. “How would she even get over this?”

  “Well,” Wade thought for a minute. “She jumps a little or maybe she just reaches this cross piece.” Wade pointed to the brace between the fencepost that all the boards were nailed to from the other side. This fence was “pretty side” in. “A hundred-to-one it’s over her head, and fifty-to-one it’s significantly over her head. So she muscles herself up. But the picket tops are about six inches above that, with no spaces. So she needs more strength to get over that.”

  “She drops to the ground on the other side.” Eleri finished. “All with this flamethrower, what? On her back? Could she toss it over first?”

  Wade gaped at her in horror. “No. The danger of breaking something, causing a leak and burning herself . . . way too great.”

  “Can she have it in parts and throw the parts over?”

  “Sure, if she wants a hole in her line that might make her blow up. The hydrogen tank shouldn’t break, but you don’t fucking throw them.”

  “Ooooh-kayyy,” Eleri conceded. “So she didn’t throw it over. She carried it. But we get the same issues when she jumps to the ground. A twisted ankle or a mis-step and she’s damaged her clearly-highly-flammable equipment.”

  Wade agreed. “Plus, how would she get back out? The fence is sheer on that side.”

  Of course it was. “Then we go through.”

  They spent the next thirty minutes weaseling their way between the boards of the fence and back out.

  “Well, that was for shit.” Eleri declared. She’d barely been able to squeeze through. “I would never have been able to get that equipment through. Unless you’re way off about the size and weight, this is a no.”

  “I’m not. And that’s assuming a minimum size.” Wade commented easily. “Also, remember, the fence was newer then and in better repair. The boards wouldn’t have moved so easily.”

  Eleri sighed. Wade was an excellent agent. She reminded herself of this. But if the boards wouldn’t have moved even as much as they did now, then she hadn’t needed to crawl through, had she?

  “I’m cranky,” she declared. “Let’s find somewhere and shower, then come in the front gate and knock on some doors.”

  It was two hours later that they’d checked into a hotel and simply cleaned up. It was another half hour before they were passing through the big metal gates at the main entrance to Burt Riser’s subdivision. As Eleri looked, she realized they weren’t wrought iron. Instead they were a cheaper, lighter metal painted black. It made sense, but it got her wondering if the neighborhood maybe only looked nice on the surface. She’d let Wade drive, thinking she might let her own mind wander more, and something hit her as she headed through the gate. Something about Wade showing his badge and ID, that made her pause, gave her a tiny sense of Deja vu that she knew was not her own.

  In a moment she said, “She came through the front gate.”

  18

  Eleri watched the man standing in his own front doorway, waiting for any tells. He didn’t give any. He wasn’t lying. Wade nodded sagely, which Eleri could tell was an act. He was hardly paying attention; he was mostly trying to smell anything that might be worthwhile.

  “I’m telling you,” the man said from the oversized arch. His arm rested on the jamb and he had no compunctions about talking to the FBI. “It looks like suburbia, but it’s not like the old school. We don’t know our neighbors. I mean, my wife does a little bit, but I don’t.”

  “Is she here?” Eleri smiled as nicely as she could.

  “She’s at yoga or something. You can talk to her when she gets back, but it’s . . .” He looked down at a very shiny watch. “It’ll be another hour, at least.”

  “Do you remember anything from the night Burt Riser was murdered? Or anything from around that time?” It was the same question she’d asked each of the other neighbors. This guy was the only one to say it, but he was right—it was not old school. None of them had seen anything or even appeared to care. The house across the street had a murder and it was as distant to them as if it had been in another town. There seemed to be some iron-clad belief that if they didn’t bring evil in, it wouldn’t find them. Eleri knew otherwise, but she kept her smile in place.

  “I didn’t see anything. My wife said she saw a couple kids walking down the street just before it got dark. Said she didn’t recognize them. She told the police.”

  Eleri wanted her ears to perk. Wanted to believe it was anything other than what it was. But it was just more nothing. She nodded, though that information hadn’t been in the police report. Clearly, the police had dismissed it. Probably they were looking for a man. Then her brain perked. “Could one have been an adult? And your wife just thought it was a kid?”

  “It was kids. Cops asked the same thing.” He didn’t move from his spot in the doorway, apparently happy to talk to them and tell them what he knew. He still wasn’t going to invite them in and offer them tea or anything. No one here had.

  Eleri tried again. “Do you have any home security?” She’d noticed the camera facing the front stoop when she came in.

  “We do now. No camera toward the street though.” He nodded when she started to frown at his forwardness. “Cops asked the same thing. We got the camera at the front door and wired the windows and doors. Your neighbor gets murdered and you notice.”

  Funny, Eleri would have thought exactly the opposite given the way none of them had known anything. “Thank you for your time.”

  She walked back to the rental car with a confidence she didn’t feel. She was dead on her feet again, despite being clean. As she slid into the car beside Wade she asked, “Did you get anything?”

  “Nope. Everyone smelled normal. Second house over eats Indian food. But that’s not surprising as the woman who answered the door was clearly Indian. The fourth house had a fire pit out back, the dad had been using it. And the last guy wasn’t lying. But that’s all.”

  “Well, that was useless.”

  “No, now we know that our killer clearly flew through the front door without picking the lock, Mary Poppins-style, while no one saw.”

  “Yeah. That.” Eleri moaned. She needed sleep.

  DONOVAN SPENT FAR TOO LONG WORKING out his signals with Christina. Had Eleri been here, he could have simply walked into the woods and gotten started. As it was, he’d spent the morning sorting files, and then he had to spend time explaining to Christina where he would leave his clothes, that she should pick them up and carry them, what one bark would mean, or two. He generally hated barking.

  He also hated that he felt this way about the assignment. He was an adult. An agent trained to work in a team or solo. He should be able to play better with other adults. But he didn’t want to.

  He stood in the woods naked, his ears perked, knowing Christina held her ground in the distance. He didn’t like when people saw this. Only Walter/Lucy had, and that had been a fluke. He still wasn’t sure what to make of it, though it had gotten them in bed together. He pushed that thought aside—no use running around in the woods like that!—and started his work.

  He pulled his shoulders forward, hunching his back, moving his scapulae in place to shift over a bit, almost like dislocating a shoulder. His ribs contracted, sliding a little between the muscles. His attachment points were different than normal. He had a medical degree; he’d checked.

  He heard the slight pop as the bones in his face pushed out. Each time he did it now, he thought about GJ Janson asking if his maxilla and facial bones were not fused. Luckily, she seemed to hav
e no clue what exactly he was, only that he was different and that he was part of some group she had seen skeletons for. He pushed his left heel out and rolled his foot forward, shifting those bones, feeling the muscles slide as they moved into place.

  His skin prickled, the sensation of the hair sliding out—almost like when he got goose-bumps in his normal shape. It was both familiar and disturbing.

  In his new form, he tested four paws on the ground and rolled his head side to side, taking deep breaths. This time, when he pricked his ears, it changed what he heard. He listened backward, toward where he’d left Christina standing guard, and heard her humming tunelessly to herself. He gave one sharp bark, indicating he was ready, then waited, wishing again that it were Eleri with him and wishing he didn’t care.

  Christina came through the woods to him, “Are you ready?”

  He gave a one-motion nod and started off. She walked behind him, her footfalls heavier than they should have been for a woman her size. He guessed she didn’t spend much time out in the woods. He’d been spending a surprising amount out and about—breaking into, searching, investigating—all kinds of places. More than he’d expected when he took the job. It seemed it wasn’t just him. The NightShade division wasn’t shy about making use of their agents’ special skills.

  They’d agreed ahead of time to check out the truck first, the woods were just a convenient spot to change. Changing at the hotel brought the risk of discovery. Plus, he liked the dirt under his feet, the smell of trees, even the thick air here. It was certainly closer to home than Wyoming had been.

  He trotted a little too fast for Christina to keep up, but it didn’t matter. They both knew where the truck was, and she was just his handler. It was his nose and his senses that were checking out the truck. It came into view and the overgrown yard tickled at his feet as he pushed through. The grass scented up at him, green and lush and untended.

  Within the minute, he was at the truck. The closed door presented a problem in this form, so he began on the outside. Christina would be here soon—he could hear her hustling to catch up. Though he supposed it was possible to work the door open himself, it would be a bitch. Besides, door-opening fell to the person with the human hands as did peeling back the “Crime Scene” tape that had been put on the truck earlier.

  He’d worked his way around to the passenger side by the time Christina made it. The driver’s side door was covered in Leroy Arvad—fingerprints that were most likely his and a scent that definitely was. There was a variety of other scents that weren’t Leroy himself, but were associated. Donovan could pick up diesel, fast food, and a chemical smell he’d had trouble identifying on the body. The woman? He couldn’t be sure.

  “Would you like me to open that for you?” Christina now stood behind him, pointing up at the cab door.

  He stared for a second, his best attempt at sarcasm, but it went past her. Then he realized he was being an ass. What if he didn’t want the door opened yet? She was being nice, smart. He offered one bob of his head and she hauled herself up and grasped the door with a gloved hand—she must have put the latex on before even asking—and he felt like more of a heel. She carefully pulled back the yellow tape, then when the door opened, the scent hit him.

  Her.

  Eleri had been right. She’d been in the cab. As a passenger. And she’d been there for a while.

  He was up and into the space despite the awkwardness of it. He snuffled frantically, letting the smells come in and out of his nasal cavity quickly, rather than lingering.

  Having to back down was hard and he tried not to make an ass out of himself.

  “Was she there?” Christina hadn’t picked up on that answer by his movements or at least she wasn’t willing to guess.

  Donovan lifted his head and dropped it in his facsimile of a nod. It wasn’t comfortable in this form, his chin didn’t go up and down the same way; he was actually bobbing his whole head from the neck. But he did it three times for emphasis. Hell yes, she was here.

  “Do you need more?”

  No. This time side to side and he let her close the cab back up and replace the yellow swaths of plastic that should help them preserve the evidence. He was off again, the tall grass clearing the scent of Leroy and the woman from his nose. This time he inhaled deeply and headed into the woods.

  He kept a much slower pace here, allowing Christina to stay right behind him. It was getting darker and the terrain in the woods was rougher. No point in doing a search and rescue on his own partner. Also, she had his clothes.

  They already knew the trail contained the scent of the woman and he didn’t have to go more than a heartbeat into the trees to catch it again. The wind and thick air had already begun to scrub her residue from the grass, but in here, it lingered almost in globs, catching on trees and bushes she’d brushed against.

  This time he would follow it to the end. The slower pace forced him to be more careful and he noticed things he hadn’t on the quick first pass with Wade.

  She didn’t leave the trail, no wandering into the woods. She had scent low and high, putting her walking upright—not crouching, crawling, or trying to hide. At one point her trail split, giving him two distinct paths to follow. He doubled back and wondered if she’d done the same.

  All the while, he watched and sniffed for the flamethrower. Had she chucked it to the side? Did she make a new one each time? Had it brushed against any of the plants in here?

  How could that be possible?

  The woods ran out, dumping him and Christina at a sharp dirt embankment leading down to a road. The woods continued on the other side and Donovan watched for traffic before heading across.

  He spent fifteen minutes trying to pick up her scent, but he couldn’t. Christina had turned on her flashlight in the deepening dusk, picking her way along behind him. At one point, a driver came by and spotted them on the side of the road and slowed to a halt. Donovan didn’t stop sniffing around, but he listened.

  “You stuck out here, ma’am? Need help?”

  “Oh no. We’re training for search and rescue. We have to practice in the dark, you know.” Christina rattled off the lie smooth and pretty. Better than he’d expected of his mostly silent new partner.

  “Oh, you do good work!” Though he didn’t look up, Donovan could hear the smile in the man’s voice. “That’s a big dog you got there. Is he part wolf?”

  “No.” She said it as if it had been a good question, but simply wrong. Donovan tried not to go still, act odd, or as if he’d been paying attention.

  Christina continued, “He’s not that big at all. Just average German Shephard size.”

  Donovan heard the slight edge in her voice. The man wouldn’t remember the large black dog. He might remember Christina, but it would be a standard search dog he recalled later.

  “Well, keep up the good work!” He drove off into the night as Donovan wondered if Christina’s talent hurt her or drained her energy or if it was just as normal as breathing to her.

  For his part, he had nothing. No scent of the woman in the woods on the other side of the road. So he called off the search and led his partner back across the street toward where they’d started.

  Back near the Arvad’s house, he gave two short barks with a long pause between.

  “What do you need?”

  Frustrated, he did it again. He hated barking like that.

  “Oh!”

  Yes, he thought, it was their pre-planned signal that he was ready to change back. She hadn’t remembered it the first time. He fought the sharp sigh that wanted to huff out.

  But she neatly set out his clothes and walked a decent distance away out to stand in the grass behind the Arvads’. LeighAnn wasn’t there. The house was now a burned hull and Donovan remembered the woman left to stay with her sister.

  He rolled his shoulders, curled his back and rotated his ankles back into place. His face was more difficult, and he pushed his chin down, getting the muscles and bones in the right place to sli
de back to human. His sense of scent diminished, his hearing dulled, and the hair had already pulled back into his skin leaving only the thicker than average, but relatively human-looking, hair on his arms.

  Kicking into his clothes, then quickly donning his sneakers, he checked out the night around him for any last clues then went out to find Christina.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “She was there. She went all the way to the road and then disappeared.”

  “You think she hitched another ride?” Christina was tilting her head, looking at him oddly as he nodded. “Then what?”

  “There’s no flame thrower. She didn’t throw it away in there.”

  “So she took it with her.” Christina shrugged, even though that didn’t really make sense. How would she ever get a car on that back road to pick her up if she had a damn flamethrower in her hand?

  “No,” he answered, “she didn’t take it with her. It was never in the woods at all.”

  19

  Eleri dreamed of the tiny, square house again. This time she walked the woods behind the Arvads’ mobile home, into the trail she’d followed Donovan down.

  Glimpses of white ducked in and out between the tree trunks, staying just ahead of her as she picked her way along the path in the dim light. The moon was visible through the branches above, which somehow seemed so much further up than they had before. The path was wider, gentler, and though she thought of it, she didn’t worry about messing up the scent trail either Donovan or Wade might need to come back and follow.

  She wandered for a while, the young woman in the white dress just ahead of her. After a little bit, Eleri became frustrated and sped up, stepping faster, catching her toe on a vine, stumbling, but not caring.

  “Eleri.” The woman turned.

  “Emmaline.” She smiled at her sister. Stuck now, forever seventeen, while Eleri grew and changed. “Emmaline.”