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

by A. J. Scudiere

  She was considering rushing for the fire extinguisher. Noting that the sink was behind the wall of flame, too, which meant she couldn’t douse her jacket or herself for protection, at least not without first running through the fire.

  Donovan and Wade were approaching the door and Eleri had no idea what their plan was when Christina smacked the tabletop with both hands.

  Eleri’s heart—already beating about a hundred miles a minute—jolted to a dead stop for a second. Her whole body jerked at the noise and her head whipped around to look at the only one of them not fighting the flames. The out-of-character move by Christina was her first warning.

  “Breathe!” the other agent yelled. “Just stand up and breathe.”

  Eleri didn’t at first and then her heart began pounding again. Her lungs sucked in air at the relief even though the flames continued around her.

  Standing, Eleri put her own hands flat on the table top and faced Christina. For once, the other agent looked fierce and even angry.

  As Eleri watched, the others caught on and came back to the middle of the room. They stood around the table and looked at Christina who wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

  Breathing deeply, if not normally, now, Eleri took stock. The air felt warm but was clean. There was no soot. When she looked at the walls, they weren’t charring. Though it felt like she’d been trapped in the burning room much longer, it was most likely less than a minute. Even so, the walls should have cracked and begun peeling by now. They were intact.

  Wade stuck his hand slowly out toward the fire. “Will it burn me?”

  Christina shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it depends on how much your mind believes the illusion.”

  “It feels hot.” However, Wade must not have thought he was in too much danger because he stuck his hand directly into the flame. He pulled it back and looked at the palm, either not caring that they were all watching him and awaiting the results or not noticing. He stuck his hand in again. After a few more passes, each lasting longer than the one before it, he held his hand out to the four of them. “Not burned.”

  The air in her lungs felt hot, Eleri decided, but she didn’t feel the smoke. She’d been in gas training houses—where officers threw OC and CS gas bombs in and practiced taking their masks off and on in the gas. She’d been in smoking houses. Hell, she’d been in Gennida Orlov’s apartment not that long after she’d died and the smoke in the air could still be felt. It made her think of something. “Christina, the other places really burned.”

  “I know. This is all override.” She looked around until she got their attention, Wade the last to look up as he’d returned to testing the “fire.”

  Eleri turned to Donovan and Wade. “You two met up with her and didn’t know it. She pushed you into believing you were seeing your friend. You bought it.”

  That sounded harsher than intended, Eleri thought.

  Christina continued before Eleri could self-correct. “Any of us could have run in to her before. Even multiple times. Just because we know about this one doesn’t mean we didn’t see her before. She could have been at the Arvads’ house. Or at Orlov’s apartment and we may have talked to her and not known it.”

  The words hit Eleri with the force of a sledge hammer. It hadn’t occurred to her—even after knowing that Donovan and Wade got taken in—that this didn’t have to be the first time.

  “We would have smelled her.” Donovan said.

  The words comforted Eleri. But only a little. She wouldn’t have smelled jack.

  “We would have smelled her on you if you’d interacted with her.” He added, maybe catching Eleri’s concerns.

  “If we didn’t touch her? If you were in human form? If we bathed afterward?” Christina asked, clearly not quite buying the “we are safe” ideas Donovan wanted to believe.

  The two men looked at each other, then reluctantly shook their heads almost in unison. Eleri would have laughed except for the part where she wanted to cry. Behind her, the fire raged on.

  She asked the question as it was starting to form in her mind. “Christina, you’re having this whole conversation, but I haven’t seen any real changes in the heat or quantity of the fire. Can you do both at once? Easily?”

  The other woman nodded. “Once it’s established, holding it is just a matter of a small amount of work to keep you where you believe.”

  Just then, the fire at the door surged, reaching out for Eleri, the heat pushing her into the table. She jumped, even though she knew it wasn’t real. When she took a deep breath and looked at the others around the table, she saw Donovan, Wade, and even Dana all looking sheepish. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who bought it.

  Then, just as quickly as it came, the fire receded. Turning to watch, Eleri saw as it seemed to shrink back into the corners of the room, almost as if it were a gas getting sucked out. The heat left with it, the standard temperature feeling almost cold in comparison.

  She turned to Christina to comment. But Christina was gone.

  Instead, around the table stood Donovan, Wade, Dana, and . . . Dana.

  The two Danas were dressed identically. Their looks of fear that changed to perturbation mirrored each other. Even their curls bounced the same. Eleri was at a loss. She tried to reason her way through it. Dana had been on the right of Christina when it had been clear which was which. So was the one on the right still Dana?

  “Okay—who’s the real Dana?” The Danas asked.

  Shit! They both moved their mouths in perfect unison.

  Then they both looked shocked at that.

  “How did you do that?” Wade demanded, almost sounding angry. Eleri knew him though. There was some strange science afoot. Wade wanted to know how it worked.

  This time no one’s mouth moved. “I make you see the same thing in both places. Sometimes I put Dana’s image onto me, like now when you shouldn’t see anyone speaking. And sometimes I put something else onto Dana, like when you saw both of us speak.”

  “That’s not okay!” Both Danas protested in mirror image.

  Eleri thought she might be actively experiencing a brain bleed.

  The Danas grabbed hands and moved up against the wall, though it wasn’t obvious which one of them was pulling the other. “Come, figure it out.”

  Eleri, Donovan, and Wade circled the table until they stood in the space in front of the two Danas.

  Eleri turned to her friends. “How close do you have to be to be to smell the difference?”

  “In human form?” Wade asked.

  “That’s the best answer. I mean, if you’re already wolf, you’re better and you can tell. But the problem is your human nose. So that’s what we need to plan for.”

  Donovan nodded and he and Wade slowly approached the Danas, sniffing at the air. They were a few feet away when Donovan then Wade lifted a finger and pointed at the Dana on the left. “There.”

  Eleri couldn’t tell.

  “Good,” that Dana—definitely Christina—said. Then Eleri’s eyes blurred. She couldn’t distinguish anything. The Danas were moving. She blinked, trying to clear her vision, but nothing worked.

  It disturbed her that, even knowing what was going on, even knowing what Christina could do, she’d still wondered why her eyes were blurry. Her first thought was still that something was wrong with her instead of that she was being tricked and the answer was outside of herself.

  This time the Danas called on Eleri to make the distinction.

  Looking rapidly between them, she took three fast steps forward and pushed one of them sharply in the shoulder.

  Both women were trained Bureau agents, so the lack of verbal “ow!” and the immediate readiness to fight back weren’t a surprise. They also weren’t what Eleri was looking for.

  The woman she hit rolled with the moved, her curls shook backward, and her expression flinched ever-so-slightly. The other Dana flinched in surprise, in a move that was decidedly un-Dana-like.

  Eleri pointed to one, then the other. “
Christina, Dana.”

  “Good.” The Christina one said. “What did you see?”

  “You didn’t react like Dana would. And something flickered in your expression. You looked like Christina for maybe a moment.”

  The Christina Dana looked at Eleri for a moment. “I didn’t know you could break the facade by startling me. I don’t do it much and I never did things like try to look like someone else. I guess I’ve always used it defensively as an agent.” She took a deep breath and looked to Eleri. “Your turn.”

  Eleri thought she’d had her turn and wasn’t prepared for Christina to mimic her.

  “Ohhh.” Her breath whooshed out of her as though she’d been hit. Another Eleri stood in front of her. Her skin tone—darker than white, but lighter than the ebony she’d inherited from Grandmere—suddenly seemed to be a color, rather than just “self.” Her hair was redder than she imagined, not a carrot color, not bright, but deeper in hue she found as she examined this other version of “Eleri.” Her eyes were greener than she thought or else Christina was doing a bad job.

  Turning to look at Donovan and Wade, she checked out their reactions. Before she could say anything at their puzzled looks, Christina grabbed her and scrambled them.

  It was a test. She had to play along. They had to learn. Otherwise they’d never be prepared and more people would burn. So Eleri stood still and looked from Wade to Donovan and back.

  Donovan looked directly at her and said, “That’s Eleri.”

  Wade nodded.

  Dana was given a chance. Christina mimicked Donovan then Wade. They all tried Eleri’s hit-one-of-them process, finding it worked. But then Wade put a stop to that. “We have to be able to tell even if we can’t touch them.”

  They all nodded. And the job got harder.

  It was much easier for Eleri to tell two Donovans or two Wades apart than two Danas or two Christinas. They all decided that their past bonds were making a difference and that if one of them told the others who was who, whey would have to go with it.

  But when Eleri struggled with one set up, Donovan leaned over and said, “Try looking a different way. You have these skills in there somewhere. Time to tap them.”

  She hadn’t even thought of it. To her, the hunches and visions were things that came to her. She didn’t call them, let alone control them. Donovan was suggesting an entirely different avenue than she’d ever considered, but she took a deep breath and tried to see the difference.

  It took five tries. Five agonizingly slow and pointless attempts before she relaxed and managed to set her brain right. “Christina!”

  She almost shouted it out. It was hard to hold, but she saw Christina.

  They tested her again and again. Though she was easily fooled if she was startled or didn’t specifically look, Eleri found she could take a deep breath and see through the disguise. They tried it with the fire and she found she could make the visions recede if only for a moment.

  It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  Her stomach growled just as Dana’s phone rang. Figured. All she’d had was a coke and a bag of chips in how many hours? The lack of sleep meant she needed more food, not less.

  Eleri was at the side of the room pulling drinks out of the fridge for everyone, then going after the chips—they had to eat—when Dana looked up.

  “I’ve had the team install cameras as many places as they can. On our cars, at Bonnie Kellogg’s home, and more. The officers at her house are wearing body cams and so will we.”

  They all nodded in response. That had been the plan. So why did Dana look upset?

  “When we decided that Bonnie Kellogg hadn’t been part of the bigger, genetics plan we decided that she wasn’t a target. There’s nothing definitive yet, but the agents on her house are reporting small things moving. Missing memories. And someone showing up on footage hours later.”

  Dana looked grim. “We were wrong.”

  40

  Donovan sat in the back of the SUV with Eleri for once. His legs were cramped and it felt like his knees were under his chin, but he wanted to see the video she had on her tablet. They were on their way to Bonnie Kellogg’s family safe house. Since she was the only Kellogg sibling left, she was the next presumed target. According to the video, it appeared they were correct.

  Eleri had tucked herself in the middle, between him and Wade. Jealousy ran through him that the other two seemed to fit without contorting or wishing their femurs were shorter. Every turn of the car swayed him. He tried to ignore it and lean over to look at the screen Eleri tried to hold at a reasonable position for all three of them. It didn’t work.

  He cranked his neck. “Play it again?”

  She hit a few buttons and the video started over. It showed the young woman from the FBI hallway, the one on the video who was present when the agents guarding Bethany Kellogg’s room unlocked the door. When they’d thought they were playing video games.

  On screen, the same young woman walked up the sidewalk, turned up the front walk and headed toward the door. But she didn’t go up the steps. She aimed to the right, and began openly casing the house. She stood on tiptoe and peered into windows. She pushed on frames, checked to see if things were locked. Then she headed for the backyard.

  “Look.” Eleri pointed. “She’s moving the potted plant so she can climb over the fence.”

  “So?” Wade asked, but Donovan was watching the young woman’s motions more closely.

  “She can’t unlock the fence, at least not with any special powers. She has to do it by hand.” Eleri pointed out. “Whatever she can do, moving the lock is not easier than actually climbing a six-foot wooden fence. That’s at least something she can’t do.”

  That was good, but Donovan kept watching, looking for a break in her cover. Something more they could use against her. Even though it tugged at him that she didn’t appear to be too far out of childhood.

  He watched her traipse through the back yard, where she went boldly up onto the porch and turned the knob to see if it was locked.

  It was.

  Good for them, Donovan thought. Locking it was FBI protocol, but the number of families who didn’t believe it was necessary or who simply “forgot” was much higher than one might thing. Unfortunately, in this case, the lock probably wouldn’t stop her. She looped back to the front of the house, opening the opposite gate from the inside, and sliding along the narrow strip that separated this big house from the equally big house next door. They lost visual for a moment.

  But right on time, she appeared around the corner, headed up onto the front porch, and tried that knob, finding it locked, too. Again, he breathed easily. Then he didn’t.

  “How old is this footage?” He aimed his question toward the front of the car.

  “Three hours.” Christina answered back, logged in to some other device in the front seat.

  “Then how do we know she’s not there now?” He asked. Three hours was too long. “How do we know the family is still alive?”

  “The guys in the car out front are still checking in regularly.” Dana assured him, but he wasn’t assured.

  “Every thirty seconds?” Because anything less than that was enough time for the unseen girl to get into the house. “They didn’t see her when she did this, right? And they were watching the house the whole time. Right?”

  “Yes,” Dana answered solemnly as she took the turn maybe a little too fast for the big vehicle, but not fast enough for the situation. She was running a little too calm for his tastes.

  Eleri joined in then too. “What were the agents guarding the house told? Do they know what she can do?”

  “No.” Dana answered and the car went silent for a moment.

  This was NightShade.

  Donovan took a deep breath. He hadn’t considered this aspect of it before. He’d always thought they were special. Few. Unique agents using what they could to help solve the difficult cases, like the cult he and Eleri had started on. Even the odd ones, like the bones foun
d in Michigan. The ones that were so time sensitive that any extra boost was needed—like in L.A. But he’d not considered they’d be hunting those with abilities similar to their own. He didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to him before. But it hadn’t.

  What chilled him was that they weren’t after a criminal with abilities similar to their own—they were after a criminal who was far superior in skill and willingness to kill. That put them at an unbelievable disadvantage.

  Dana stopped the car about four blocks from the house.

  Though he wanted to unfold himself, Donovan asked his question first. “What are the agents doing to protect themselves and the family from her?”

  “They’re watching the loop at three minutes.” Dana opened her car door and climbed out as though the answer was reasonable. The tone in her voice said otherwise. She was at least as upset about that situation as he was.

  He felt the anger rolling off Eleri even before climbed out of the car and heard her words. “They aren’t safe. And you’re going to leave them like that?”

  “Not my call,” Dana replied calmly enough that she appeared to be fighting her own anger on it.

  Donovan only managed to look at her oddly before she answered his unspoken question.

  “Westerfield.”

  Donovan’s only real consolation was that in the video there was no evidence the woman knew she was being watched. Just as his brain tripped over the thought, Christina put it to words. “Are we going to call her Grace when we meet her? Are we confident enough to do that?”

  He wasn’t. He’d even been thinking of her as “the woman” ever since they’d realized they were wrong and it wasn’t Mina Aroya. He was glad he hadn’t come face to face with her and arrogantly called her by the wrong name. Doing so would tip their hand that they didn’t know as much as they wanted to believe they did. But he did know who to ask.

  “Eleri?”

  Startled, it took her a moment to catch on that he was ready to rely on another of her hunches. This woman was too much for them. For anyone. She’d killed repeatedly without leaving a trace. It had taken this long and this many deaths in rapid succession for them to even get a handle on her. They needed to throw everything they had at her. Psychology was a valuable tool. Speaking to her as a person and not a suspect could go a long way. Using the wrong name would be just as bad.