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

by A. J. Scudiere

  “Oh.” Despite his obvious irritation, Eleri absorbed the words. “That sounds like a pretty good approximation.”

  “I don’t care. Because she also told me she’s been playing amateur FBI agent.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Eleri felt her heart stop. Westerfield was going to kill them. If they were lucky, he’d have them hanged. If unlucky, drawn and quartered. GJ Janson had inserted herself into their last case, eventually proving herself useful. But their Special Agent in Charge had not appreciated their use of a civilian regardless of the fact that they would have had to shoot the grad student to keep her out.

  Maybe they should have shot her.

  “It gets worse, El.” Donovan looked around and Eleri worried.

  If this was from the Atlas case, then even Wade or Christina or Dana wasn’t privileged for it. “What did she do?”

  “She went and became a volunteer at Dr. Benjamin Schwartzgarten’s nursing home. He changed his name to Kellogg and she still found him. She reads to him and talks to him about his kids. His kids, Eleri.” This time his air quotes bore a gravity she didn’t want to think about.

  The “kids” were victims of a cruel government plan. The ends had not justified the means and only a few had gotten out. “Holy shit.”

  “Save it. We aren’t even to ‘holy shit’ yet.”

  He went on, explaining the crap GJ Janson had gotten herself into this time. “She found four graduates of the Atlas program. One is Peter Aroya.”

  “Peter Aro—” Eleri felt her breath suck in as the name came into focus. “You are fucking kidding me.”

  “Nope. It could be a different one. I notified the analysts and they’re digging into our guy’s background. If the Peter Aroya who’s the son-in-law of our latest victim is the same, we have some serious shit going down.”

  Eleri’s brain began to churn. “Do we wait until we get confirmation from the analysts before we say anything to Dana?”

  “Don’t we have to? Then we go to Westerfield.” His phone rang.

  So did hers.

  Donovan heaved a weary sigh. “I hate him.”

  Westerfield always called when they were talking about him. Maybe he should no longer be spoken of by name, Eleri wondered. Maybe that was one of his powers. “Good afternoon, sir.”

  Donovan looped into the call with a click, “Hello, we’re both on now.” He almost couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice.

  “Tell me about the case. You’re on break?”

  Eleri took over. Where she and Donovan were concerned, she was still the senior partner. She still considered it her duty to shield him from the crap that went along with the life, at least for a while. She explained about the lack of leads, about Dana putting them on a mental health break after being quarantined.

  “What?”

  “Sir, she’s some kind of bio-psychic. She put her hand on each of us and said our blood pressure was too high and we were collectively headed for a meltdown.” Eleri held her tongue and didn’t comment that it hadn’t helped to be quarantined for a highly unlikely transmissible disease. Then again, had she been in Dana’s shoes, she didn’t know what she would have decided. Hunting serial killers wasn’t for the faint of heart. Being responsible for a fatal transmissible disease getting spread? That would have killed the bio-psychic.

  “Wade’s building the flame-thrower.” She tossed it into the conversation as bait.

  But Westerfield didn’t take it. “Good. What’s this about Aroya?”

  Oh shitshitshit. Rule one, remember, Westerfield knew everything. “Well, sir, we just got a call from GJ Janson. Seems she’s been out sleuthing on her own. She’s been chatting with an Alzheimer’s patient named Dr. Benjamin Kellogg, previously Schwartzgartner . . . He’s one of—”

  “Yes, from the Atlas case. And she linked Aroya to this case?”

  “Yes, sir.” Eleri waited for him to explode. To yell at them for letting a civilian in. To fire her on the spot, terminating her not only from the NightShade division, which she was growing to love, but from the FBI entirely. For a moment, she panicked. Her mouth opened, but words were slow to form.

  Westerfield filled the pause. “I’ve had my eye on her. She’s better than we gave her credit for.”

  Donovan, who’d been listening in and not commenting, now turned sharply to look at her, his jaw suddenly hanging open. “What?” He mouthed it at her as he pointed at his phone.

  Eleri shrugged. She had no clue. Then again, she never did when Westerfield was concerned. “Well,” she flustered her way through it, “that’s good to know.”

  Avery came in through the back door, looked at one of them, then the other, and gestured at her that he would get his luggage. She nodded and watched as he headed past her toward the large, heavy front door. She was seeing her home with new eyes now that there were other people in it. As a kid, she’d not noticed others’ reactions.

  She spent a few more minutes having Westerfield talk her through what the protocol was if this Peter Aroya was the same one that Dr. Benjamin Kellogg had helped create. Her brain hurt at the implications of that. Mercifully they were allowed to end the call before Avery came back in.

  “Here,” she smiled at her boyfriend when he returned. “Let me show you which room to put your stuff in.”

  Donovan raised his eyebrows at her from behind Avery’s back. Yeah, well. She led Avery down the hall to her room and showed him where to stash his suitcase.

  He frowned as she opened the huge armoire. “There are no closets.”

  “Old house.” She shrugged.

  “I’ll say.”

  Eleri sighed. “I hate to say this, but I think I need to talk with Donovan about the case a little more. Then, after that, I’ll hopefully be yours.”

  He grinned. “I understand. I’m not fully yours either. I have to run—carefully, so as not to hurt my precious play-offs body—and I have to work out and I already gave you my diet and . . .”

  “I know. One day. One day, we’ll get a real break. Right?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  With a grin, she headed out into the hall where she found Donovan staring at one of the paintings. “I look like her, don’t I?”

  “You’re more like her than you know,” he said cryptically. She was about to tell him to spit it out, already, when he did. “You know why Sarah Hale is famous, right?”

  He was pointing at the painting.

  “She’s famous?” No, she didn’t know.

  “She’s a Salem witch.”

  “Haha. Everyone in Salem was a ‘witch.’ That’s your big worry?” Eleri felt the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding escape.

  “Eleri, she was convicted but not killed. So was Rebecca Eames.” He pointed to another picture.

  “Yes, Donovan, everyone in Salem was pretty much on one side or the other. Doesn’t mean they were actually witches.” Jesus, he was running with this.

  “And Eleri Llewelyn Hale?”

  “My grandmother. I’m named for her. Donovan—”

  “Llewelyn is the biggest name in American witchcraft, Eleri.” He stared for a moment. “You’re a Remy and a Hale and an Eames, and a Llewelyn. I’m beginning to wonder what you can’t do.”

  23

  Donovan didn’t know what to do despite the fact that he’d been told specifically what to do if this happened. He just wasn’t positive that it had happened. Then again, how could it have not?

  This case had taken a massive turn for the bizarre.

  It had taken less than a day for the analysts to produce an updated docket on Peter Aroya.

  There was a graduation record from a high school in the town of Queen Creek Arizona. The year matched for Peter Aroya’s age. His parents were listed as Don and Jane Aroya, both deceased.

  It looked legit, but Donovan and the analysts had been trained to read between the lines.

  Don and Jane Aroya had died together in a car accident in Tucson when Peter would have been tw
enty. But there was no record of them having a child. Peter’s birth certificate existed, but was issued from a hospital that had closed. Thus, it was nearly impossible to confirm his birth beyond the copy of the certificate the analyst had dug up. Also, using a deceased couple was a great way to create a false identity.

  Peter’s age at their time of death meant he would never have gone into the foster system, which meant there were no records of him there to confirm his past.

  The town of Queen Creek was just over thirty-thousand people in size. It was big enough that it wasn’t weird that no one remembered the Aroya family after this kind of time passage. The analysts had checked and not found anyone who did. It didn’t mean the family hadn’t been there, and it didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone who remembered them. It just meant that at first sweep, corroboration wasn’t easy to find.

  The thing that made Peter Aroya seem like a graduate of the Atlas program was that the town of Queen Creek had one high school. It was on East Ocotillo Road, the same road the courthouse sat on. It was also the same road a storm had ravaged in the late eighties—destroying all the land records, deeds, high school reports, everything that one Peter Aroya might need to prove his very existence. That same storm had come through the town just one year before a graduate of the Atlas program would likely have needed those falsified records.

  “Eleri!” Donovan yelled it through the house as though his voice might carry far enough to find her. He sounded like an old “I love Lucy” episode and he didn’t like it. Then again, he didn’t like any of this.

  “Are you serious?” She came around the corner, into the airy sitting room just beyond the kitchen.

  He’d thought about the layout—the kitchen had to have been remodeled into the place. The original buildings were old enough that the kitchen would not have been part of the structure, but out behind the home. He’d seen evidence of cornerstones in the garden. They were artfully made into part of the grand display, but they were there. This room had been redone to create a kitchen inside the house. And it probably had been redone again to achieve the old-yet-modern look it now sported. The eat-in area and the sitting room he was in would have been part of that.

  The windows were almost floor to ceiling, the panes of old glass in small rectangles set into what appeared to be handcrafted framing. He was on a large, comfortable couch looking out at old English-style gardens that were carefully tended to look like they just grew that way. Before him was a coffee table made from a thick dark wood that matched the long table at the eat-in area. He was pretty sure it was reclaimed from something far more important than him. Despite the beauty around him, he couldn’t appreciate it.

  “I’m sorry. I have bad news.” He looked at the pages he’d printed, at the pieces he’d pulled up on his laptop. Another notice had pinged in.

  The local branch had sent an analyst out to Queen’s Creek. The library on the same road as the school, thus they had no high school yearbooks either. Not from the years that might have proved Peter Aroya had once been a student there.

  Donovan groaned as he read it. He’d wanted Peter Aroya to simply have a coincidental name. He’d wanted the man to be so concrete that he wouldn’t have to deal with Atlas at all again.

  “Eleri.” Donovan only said her name, but he motioned to what was in front of him and sat back on the couch while she read through it and drew her own conclusions.

  He put his hands over his face.

  Eleri had these beautiful homes. He’d vacationed at FoxHaven—the homes all had names, of course—and at least then he’d enjoyed it. That visit had been cut short by a case. And now, here he was, with woods, fields, farm, and a Virginia tang in the air that he’d never smelled before and wanted to explore and instead he was getting more case information.

  “Crap.” Eleri said and Donovan looked up, nodding at her as he smelled Avery coming down the hallway. The man’s footsteps were not light. Then again, he was a professional in a game known for hiring “enforcers.” Donovan suppressed his shudder.

  “Avery.” He whispered it.

  Eleri shook her head. “No worries. I’ll tell him.”

  She was standing to do just that, speaking in a low tone to her boyfriend that she needed a few minutes to sort this out, as Donovan’s system pinged again. He felt his chest tighten as he started to read. Shit.

  He didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until Eleri and Avery’s heads swiveled his direction. Donovan looked up.

  “I get it.” Avery held his hands up. “Top secret. I’m out of your way.” Then he looked at Donovan, “Just give her back to me soon.”

  “I’ll do my best.” He shrugged back at the other man. The truth was, though, Eleri was needed.

  “What is it?” She came back and sat down next to him, her slight weight denting the cushions next to him, her focus entirely on the screen.

  “Sara Vanguard and Jason Krupp went to the same high school and graduated in the same year.”

  “Jesus.” She breathed it out tonelessly. “There’s no way they all went to the same place and Dr. Benjamin Kellogg just happens to be reciting their names.”

  Donovan agreed. “They have different graduation years. But all lost in the storm. No records.”

  “What about the fourth one?” Eleri asked.

  “Chloe Mercer.” Donovan filled in, then he pushed a paper her way.

  Chloe Mercer had died at age seventeen. “But,” he added, “Our analysts had no trouble finding Chloe Mercer alive and well. Same social, same everything.”

  He heard the thump of the final nail in the coffin.

  “NOT UNTIL TOMORROW. Nothing will change before then.” Eleri told Dana, playing every card she held. Avery was here, and he’d be leaving the next day anyway.

  “Not unless a dead body turns up.” Dana countered.

  “If that happens, then Donovan and Wade and I would just have to turn around and come right back. Except for some massive airline fees, we won’t have anything to show for it.”

  “Fair enough. Leave tomorrow morning,” Dana conceded and Eleri had felt the air rush out of her chest. “Now catch me up to speed.”

  Eleri filled her boss in on the previous case she and Donovan had worked. “We couldn’t truly close the case. Most of the few children who ‘graduated’ the program have disappeared.”

  Then she was forced to admit about GJ. “We had a colleague who was doing some follow-up work unbeknownst to us. When she updated us, the name ‘Peter Aroya’ turned up.”

  “He’s one of these ‘graduates’?” Dana sounded as shocked as she had a right to be. “Our Peter Aroya?”

  Eleri updated her on the rest of the information.

  “Well, that’s pretty damning. And he’s gone missing.” Dana mused. Eleri could hear Christina in the background. “What are the chances that the two cases would intersect like this?”

  Eleri didn’t know, but it was Christina who chimed in. “Probably pretty high. There’s a link, we just don’t know it yet. What seems random rarely is.”

  Eleri had to agree with that.

  That had been yesterday. Today, she’d left Bell Point Farm. The reprieve had not been as long as promised and it hadn’t been long enough. Then again, promises in the FBI were as solid as the air they were written on.

  Wade had spent the previous afternoon brushing up on the Atlas case.

  They dropped Avery at his airline, giving Eleri only a few short moments alone with the man, before she ran off in a different direction. If this relationship survived her life, it would be a miracle.

  The three agents now stood at a private check-in, having badged their way through most of the airport process, when Wade started talking.

  “The flame thrower can’t be gasoline or even hydrogen gas based. I can’t get it to burn hot enough.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t get it to throw fire hot enough, like the pattern we saw, or you can’t get it to burn that hot, period?” Eleri was frowning at him while an agent
checked her bag and found that yes, she did in fact have the firearm she claimed she had.

  “Not unless I make it into a bomb.” Wade countered.

  Donovan hopped into the conversation then. Eleri couldn’t recall when she’d seen him that angry.

  “We are in a fucking airport, you two.” He was seething. “Can you please stop talking about—” he lowered his voice and the growl almost came through, “—bombs and flamethrowers.”

  “Oh.” Eleri nodded. “Good idea.” But then she turned to Wade. “You just couldn’t get it hot enough at all or not hot enough and still be hand-held?”

  “I’m going to kill you.” Donovan sighed. “I’m going to change, right here and rip you to shreds.”

  “You do realize you’re issuing death threats in an airport.” She countered, but she did really need to stop talking about bombs.

  Though the agent at the airport looked at them oddly, she didn’t arrest them, and they checked in relatively easily. In fact, the whole flight was so calm that Eleri almost missed when her phone pinged; the analysts had more information for them.

  Dr. Benjamin Kellogg, Junior, also a geneticist, had landed at the same airport in Wyoming just two days prior. He’d not been on any other flights using his own name since.

  24

  Donovan sniffed the air in the small living room and watched as Wade did the same beside him. A sharp nod came from his friend as Wade very quietly announced, “Someone’s here, outside.”

  But Wade didn’t say what Donovan knew and there wasn’t time to speak it.

  The three of them stood inside the ruins of an abandoned house. At least the weather was nice. The power had been turned off almost two years ago. The water had been stopped not much later. On the counter, a scattering of bills and cutoff threats—both opened and unopened—let them know relatively precise dates for the shut-offs.