My gaze scanned over the walls that weren’t cracked and blackened. A faint red glow caught my attention.
“It’s still active.” Clarissa put a hand on my shoulder. “I can’t see what rune it is.”
“Me neither, but if it’s still active it’s probably specifically to keep me out of the area. Or one of the construction workers would have activated it by now.”
Clarissa nodded. “Which means it should be safe for me to go in there.”
“It’s not worth risking it.” I pressed my lips together. “I already lost Nick, I don’t want to get you killed as well.”
She patted my cheek like I was a stubborn child. “You forget that we can take precautions. Be ready to throw up a circle around me after I dust it off.”
It was risky, but I could get it up in time to protect her. As long as it wasn’t something that went boom and threatened all of us.
She climbed down a ladder a crew member had left for us. I held my breath as she crossed the floor, stepping over pieces of plaster and wood. She reached out to brush the dirt off the wall. I felt a tremor of fear roll through my body, making my hand shake as I prepared to put a circle around Clarissa.
The dirt fell away with a mere brush of her hand, displaying the rune. It wasn’t a Cult rune and it didn’t belong to our coven. Clarissa came back and climbed up the latter. “It’s an American rune, visiting witch or warlock, but no one’s checked in with our coven about visiting.”
I stared at the rune. “I know the root of that one.”
“So do I, Abby, so don’t go near it.”
I clenched my fingers into tight fists until my nails bit into my hands. The base of the rune shot anger through me and I found myself swearing that if I found out who did this, I’d kill them before they got the chance to finish their job. The death rune was considered black magic, regardless of intention, and this person left one in my basement.
Clarissa had insisted that she come to the PIB building with me to make sure that I didn’t accidentally stumble upon another death rune. I didn’t think it was necessary, but I reminded myself that she was worried. Worried about me, about how I grieved, and how I was handling the current chaos around me.
We pulled up to the building, stopping outside the caution tape and squad cars. I glanced at Clarissa. “This is as far as you can go.”
“Can’t get me on the scene as a consultant?”
I motioned to where Boss Man stood speaking to a few other PIB agents. “Not with him on the scene. I promise I won’t go within touching distance of any active runes. Okay?”
“I’m not exactly sure how I feel about that.”
“Look at it this way, if the last explosion was meant to kill me, it would have done it while I was in the building.”
We both paused and looked at each other. “Holy shit, whoever did this might have wanted you alive. So someone in the building was their intended target.”
The bomb had gone off mere minutes after I was off the property and at a safe distance. I got out of the car and headed towards Boss Man. “Anything new?”
“We found runes on what was left of the elevator shaft. They match a coven a few states away and we think that the fill in receptionist had something to do with it.”
“I thought we did background checks on them.”
“We do, she had no priors and her reference checked out.”
I paused. “Who was her reference?”
“Johnny Smiths”
Son of a bitch. “He’s the main suspect on our case right now. I’m getting ready to file executioner papers on him.” But why did he want me alive? Maybe I was just lucky and Clarissa and I were being paranoid.
Boss Man met my gaze. “Are you sure?”
“Would I lie about a thing like that?”
“Go file those papers, make sure you mention that alias and the connection he has. Then you put that case file away. The thumbs case is your primary concern right now.”
Though that one also had a connection to Ira. “Working on it. I did a trace spell last night and got some new information. We’ll do what we can for that one.”
If we could find a body for Agent Nathaniel Heights and another set of thumbs, I could close the murder part of that case. I didn’t think it was too much to ask for.
“Now, get back to work. You’re not supposed to be on this scene.”
I nodded and went back to the Hummer. Clarissa looked up from her phone. “That was quick.”
“Boss Man doesn’t want me on the scene. But I learned enough to condemn a vampire to execution. I’ll drop you back off on my way to the north office.” I started the car and looked at the building again. Three cases, all connected, and chances were the suspect was getting away.
I walked into the north building and wrinkled my nose. The smell of plastic and cardboard assaulted my senses as I tried to figure out where Agent Grace was. IT people crowded the halls as they unboxed new computers and equipment.
I finally found her in the break room, pouring over her laptop. “Find something interesting?”
“No, just more combing through what we already know.” She shut her computer. “What do you have for me? You’re late coming in.”
“Had some personal stuff that needed to be taken care of. The trace spell was productive last night, there was an agent by the name of Nathaniel Heights that worked with Ira. He delivered ten bodies to the vampire.”
“No, Nathaniel wasn’t capable of that kind of violence.” She met my gaze. “There’s no way he would have killed ten people to work with a vampire.” The confidence in her voice dared me to challenge her.
“I’m just telling you what the spell showed me. He had said there was unfinished business and he had to deal with the victims.”
She sighed and opened her computer back up. “Nathaniel was a special case. PIB recruited him off the streets to work in controlled substances and drug related crimes. Occasionally we had supernatural creatures pop up as drug dealers, and the human police couldn’t do anything about it.”
I remembered dealing with a drug-dealing vampire earlier in the year. It wasn’t unheard of. “So do you think that unfinished business was drug related?”
“I do. I don’t know why he would take the thumbs.”
I shrugged. “Sadly, Ira snapped his neck. But you knew that already. You referred to Nathaniel in past tense.”
“I knew that he had been killed, I didn’t know by who. But his neck was snapped. We all assumed one of the drug dealers did it.” She turned the screen around and showed me the file she’d pulled up. “He was filed under ‘died in the line of duty’ because that’s what we thought happened.”
“Instead, he was killed betraying PIB. If we could figure out what that unfinished business was…” I pulled out my notes. “All of the victims pulled up on the PIB database, not the human, but that’s all I was told.”
I handed her the paper with all the names. “Nick said he couldn’t find anything that related them to each other, but maybe you can.”
She took the paper from me and turned the computer screen back around. “If they had a connection to Nathaniel then they were either druggies or they were PIB agents.”
“Someone would notice if ten PIB agents went missing though, wouldn’t they?”
“I certainly would hope so.” She tapped on her keyboard a bit. “I’m glad you got something useful from the trace spell.”
I got a lot more than that, but I wasn’t planning on letting her in on Levi’s part. Angry at him or not, I didn’t want him more involved in this than he needed to be. “Me too. It was an interesting spell to do for sure.” I didn’t know if I’d add it my list of best tools for the job, but it was interesting at least.
“You handle Jerry.”
“What is your past with him?” I asked with a raised brow.
She snorted. “We dated for a little bit. I didn’t know that he was working for a vampire, but he was always pompous.”
“Ah
hh, so I get to handle him so he can’t claim conflict of interest.” I gathered up my papers. “I’ll go to the station then. I’ll be putting in the request for execution tonight when the supervisor gets in.”
“Things are finally winding down, huh?”
I laughed. “Don’t say that. Besides, I won’t consider the blood-starved vampires case and the corpse case closed until Ira is officially dead.” I shook my head. I also still needed to make Simon aware that his wolves had been involved. Even if he hadn’t been a Pack master then, he still needed to know that we found five of his people deceased.
“PIB can’t close a hundred percent of the cases. There are execution orders that are never carried out, there are supernaturals that are just too damn good and cover their tracks.”
I didn’t want these cases to end up in that category. “He needs to be brought to justice.”
“And what are you going to do? Hunt him down? Abigail, you can’t catch all the bad guys in the world. Bring to justice who you can and leave the rest to fate.”
I was about say something about her last cold case, but I let it go.
She turned her computer around. “Looks like all of our victims were in the supernatural drug circuit.”
I wonder why Nick’s search hadn’t pulled it up? Maybe it was another clearance thing. I paused at that thought. If it was classified, then it meant that it was connected to supernatural politics. And with the evidence from the recent cases, I would assume vampire politics. Did the vampire king have something to do with drug trafficking? Levi had said there had been an increase in drugs in his territory recently. I had dealt with a vampire drug dealer about a year ago.
I pressed my lips together. “So we have connections.”
“A penny for your thoughts?”
“I’m wondering why you were able to pull up the information but Nick wasn’t.” I didn’t think Nick was incompetent in his search abilities, he was normally spot on for things like this.
“Looks like some of it was restricted information. His clearance wasn’t higher than yours, so he wouldn’t have been able to pull it up.” There was a slightly irritated tone to her voice.
But restrictions on common druggies? I didn’t question it out loud, there was no reason to push her further. I didn’t want my paranoia rubbing off on her either. “Did you talk to Boss Man at all about the PIB building?”
She shook her head. “No, I’ve been here trying to figure out what I was missing. And you just brought in the missing links.”
“They think it was the fill in receptionist, she gave the alias as her reference name.”
She looked up at me. “Isn’t that interesting? Do they have any idea what the motive behind it was?”
“No, but if we want to go with everything else that’s happened with the thumbs case, I’d say that it was an attempt to bring down PIB. Or at least try to shake us a little bit.”
She nodded. “Because they got away the first time because they killed Nathaniel, and now they are taunting us.”
“Yes, but we have two people, Nathaniel is dead, but we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was an accomplice. The only people we’re missing are Ira and the receptionist.”
“Three out of five isn’t horrible.” She chuckled. “Who knows, a decade from now maybe it’ll be completely solved by the next generation of PIB agents.”
She was giving up. I didn’t like the idea, but I couldn’t go hunting for Ira. I had no resources to use, no one to back me up, and no reason to not trust the execution team. “I’m going to go talk to Jerry about Nathaniel and then I’ll write up the report for the case. Tonight I’ll put the request in.”
She shut her computer and started to pack her stuff away. “Abby, I can tell by your voice that this isn’t the ending you want.”
“Yes, but as you pointed out, we can’t solve all the cases and this isn’t a fairy tale where everything will wrap into a box.” I sighed and grabbed my bag. “I’ll see you around then?”
She nodded. “I’m not going anywhere until Tomes is tried, remember?”
“Yep, and it seems to me like it might be a while before that happens. I told Boss Man that I’d take some time off and see the grief counselor. I’ll make an appointment, but I don’t want to take more time off.”
She nodded. “Do what you need to. We all process tragedy different ways.” She zipped up her bag. “Let me know if Jerry gives you any problems.”
“I will.”
She walked out of the break room, leaving me alone to think. She was acting like everything was over for the case, just file the paperwork, hit send, and it’s done. But I wasn’t done with this case, sure three out of five wasn’t bad, but there was more out there. More to this case, and some of it was solved, much like Tomes. But there was so much more out there. Where Ira was hiding, what other experiments were going on, the victims of this one, so many things unanswered and I wasn’t going to let it go that easily.
I gathered my things and headed back to the Hummer. I didn’t need a partner for the rest of this. I’d close it to the best of my abilities and get the answers I needed. I could track the receptionist. An odd idea spawned in my mind, if I could get something of Ira’s then I could track him as well.
An evil smile curled over my face. He was a vampire, not a witch, chances were he didn’t know what all we could use for a tracking spell. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it in the first place.
I walked into the police station with a new confidence to my step. Agent Grace was wrong; I could get the executioners a location to start with. I wouldn’t go after Ira myself. Not yet. I would give the team a chance to do their job, but I would get a location on him. That was my job.
Mason was standing outside of the interrogation room. “You look awfully happy right now.”
“I had a breakthrough, which means I’m about to close all three of my cases. That makes me happy.” I motioned to the door. “He ready for me?”
“He says he has nothing more to tell you and there’s nothing you can do to make him tell you.” Mason shrugged. “We got him on quite a bit, do you really need to talk to him again?”
I nodded. “I need to just confirm that he knows someone and is associated with what happened.”
“Good luck.” Mason laughed. “He’s all yours.”
“I thought we had to be supervised when interrogating...”
Mason paused. “Normally, but we know you well enough that we don’t worry about that rule. One of my rookies give you issues?”
“There was a woman here the first time, when I used the truth spell.” The one that hadn’t worked. “She said that I had to be supervised, that it was protocol and you let me get away with too much.” I knew I was paraphrasing, but it was close enough.
Mason’s brows drew together and a little wrinkle formed on his nose. “Can you describe her?”
I gave him the description of her that I remembered and his eyes widened a bit. “That doesn’t describe one of our officers here.”
My heart pounded in my chest. “Then who was she and how did she manage to get into your building and into an interrogation?”
“I don’t know.”
But now I had an idea of why my spell didn’t work. She might have managed to mess with any magic that was performed in there. I shook my head. “When we’re done with him, I need to search the room and see if here’s a rune or something that would interfere with my magic.” If this was all Ira, he knew what he was doing and how to slip people into the system. I was not pleased at all about this.
Jerry looked up at me. “Ah, hello again, Agent Collins. Come to have another try at me? I already told you everything I could.”
I put a picture of Nathaniel on the table. “Agent Heights. Know him?”
“Should I?” He leaned back into his chair and tapped his fingers against the table.
I shrugged. “I talked to him yesterday and he can place you at the scene of the crime, with ten additional
bodies.”
He jerked up right. “Impossible.”
“Oh? He was able to describe Ira Daiz, alias Johnny Smiths. He was able to tell me about the thumbs.” Obviously I was stretching the truth just a little bit, but it got the reaction I wanted out of him.
His face turned red and he slammed his hands on the table. “He’s dead.”
“How are you so sure about that?”
He snarled. “Because I saw his body. That was the reason we decided to kill him, so he couldn’t fucking rat on us.”
“Thank you. Do you want to tell me about the bodies?”
“No.” He snapped and sat back down, taking a deep breath. “There’s nothing more to tell, Agent Collins. Nothing at all.”
I stood. “You’re right. Thank you for confirming what I needed.”
“How did you figure it out? You obviously couldn’t talk to him. He’s not one of the ghosts there.”
I looked over my shoulder. “I’m a witch… magic.” I walked out, shutting the door behind me. Mason stood there with his arms crossed.
“That was quick, did you learn anything?”
I nodded. “I got him to tell me that he knew the person and that he was killed. That’s all I needed.”
“And how did you manage to get him to admit to that?”
“Stretched the truth just a bit.” I shrugged. “Have him taken back. I want to check the room.”
Mason called for a deputy while I waited. When Jerry was removed I walked in and crawled under the table.
“Just exactly what are you looking for?” Mason asked, walking into the room.
I looked at the bottom of the table and saw a rune scratched into it. An anti-magic rune, it would have screwed with my spell without me realizing it. “This down here.” I pulled my phone out and took a picture of it. “You need to replace this table and any of the other ones that might have been tampered with.”
“You think they would have messed with all the tables?”
“Unless you put me in the same one each time, then I would say yes. Check your cameras and see if you caught her doing it.” I climbed out from under the table. “I can’t believe I didn’t think about that.” I growled.
The Trouble with Ghosts (Here Witchy Witchy Book 3) Page 21