Paige gritted her teeth. “Yeah. Seems like.”
“Which meant he was there. Today.”
“How’d he know we were going to visit Sam first?” Frustrated rage swept through her. She slammed her fist against the door.
Tony shook his head.
“Unless he’d followed us and then nudged Sam to—damn it!”
“I’m really gonna need you to finish that sentence, Pea,” Dexx said carefully from the back.
“Demons are capable of gentle mind-control.” She pressed her fist to her lips, trying not to hit the door again.
Thump. “Great.”
Paige glanced at Tony who was looking at Dexx in his rearview mirror. “He was there. Sam telling you two to go to the deer stand? Sam taking me out on my own?” She pressed her frozen fingertips to her brow. “I have got to stop being so stupid!”
“You’re being a little hard on yourself, Pea,” Dexx said.
She shook her head. “I’m the demon summoner.”
“And without your scry globe, you’re just as blind as the rest of us, so, please, Pea. Let it go.”
“Globe?” Tony asked.
“Scry globe,” Paige grumbled. “I used to be able to see where demons, angels, and other magickal people were around me, but now, I can’t.”
He paused, then took a right at the light heading into Golden. “Well, that could be very helpful.”
“Yeah.”
“So,” Tony said, “nothing shows up? At all?”
“Nope. It sees nothing.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
“How would we show up on your globe?”
Good question. “How big is your population? I mean, would it be common to have paranormals almost anywhere?”
Tony nodded and shook his head at the same time.
“Well, when I was in Louisiana, I didn’t see anything other than demons, angels, and witches.”
“Hmm.”
“Yeah.”
“Like I said,” Dexx said, “you’re blind just like the rest of us. So, stop kicking yourself so damned hard.”
She couldn’t help herself. Demons were supposed to be her specialty. When called on to deal with them, she should be able to, but she had completely failed today. He’d been there. Sven was here. Tailing her. Watching her. She checked the side mirror.
Tony glanced at her. “No one’s tailing us.”
Her phone rang. With a sigh, she picked it up and answered. “Whiskey.”
“Hey, it’s Danny. Danny Miller.”
The reporter. She groaned. “Hey, Danny.”
“You really have nothing you want to share on this one?”
“Not really.”
“But you know I can help.”
“I don’t know how you can on this one, Danny. Really. Just…” The man was good. Had a good head on his shoulders. Had a good moral compass, a good heart. She couldn’t let him get tangled up in this one. “Take a beat.”
“Werewolves.”
Paige’s heart stopped along with her brain. She couldn’t even figure out what she should say to that.
“I know. I’ve been tracking this story for a long time.”
“How long?”
“Since my sister was bitten.”
Well, uh. That changed things. Didn’t it? She could talk to him about it. Couldn’t she?
“Look. You help me. I’ll help you.”
Tempting. “How can you help me?”
“There are avenues I can follow that you can’t.”
“Like?”
“Like, if you could get me the name of the person directly involved, I could gently inquire about his transactions.”
Gently inquire. While the information might be good, it could also get him into a lot of trouble. The kind she couldn’t bail him out of. But the idea had merit. “Which I can’t do without proof and a warrant.”
“And a really interesting conversation with a judge.”
Yeah. That part. Never went well.
“You’re in a strange position, Detective. I understand that. But, really, I can help.”
“What’s your angle?”
“My sister didn’t survive.” His voice deepened a little as he continued. “I need to know if these things are evil.”
“They’re not.”
“Well,” he said, his tone clipped. “My sister’s dead.”
“I can look into her case if you want.”
He paused. “That would be nice. Can I have that name?”
“It’s not going to help you find her. He’s not connected.”
“It’ll help with your investigation, won’t it?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. The debate was over before it started. She needed information. “Sven Seven Tails. That’s the only the name I know him by, though I’m sure he’s using another alias.”
“I’ll see what I can dig up.” Excitement sizzled through the phone.
“Thanks. And, Danny?”
“Yeah, Detective.”
“Don’t be a headline.”
“Yeah.” He paused. “Yeah, okay. You got it.” He ended the phone call.
She swallowed and put the phone in her lap.
“Another human?” Tony’s voice boiled with anger.
Dexx cleared his throat, the leather of the seat squeaking as he fell back. “What’s Sven’s game?”
Paige ran everything she knew through her mind.
All the shifters who had disappeared were described as sweet until their spirit animal came out, at least lately. Some had been shifters for years, gaining experience as the decades passed, but then something had changed. Their spirit animals had become aggressive.
The younger ones who had been taken had similar stories, except that they didn’t have decades of experience to fall back on. They were just discovering this new world.
What did they all have in common?
Volatility in their paranormal abilities.
What did she have in common with them?
Volatility in her gift, but only after Sven had cast his spell.
She looked toward Tony. “We need to go back to last night’s crime scene.”
“Okay.” He frowned. “Done. Why?”
“Last night, I’d been tracking the demon. This is Sven.”
“Who isn’t a demon.”
“Oh, he is. Just a completely different kind of whack-job. In Louisiana, he had human lackeys doing his dirty work.”
“So,” Tony said, the crow’s feet around the one eye she could see crinkling, “what does that mean?”
“They were how I caught him before. If I can track the demon who killed Elizabeth Harwood, we could find where the shifters are being held.” Goddess bless, she felt so stupid, which wasn’t helping. When she felt like this, she did things half-cocked, without thinking. “That demon last night looked right where I was standing when I was reviewing the scene. He’d known to look for me because he was going to plant his handprint there.”
“That would be a great lead.”
She shook her head.
“He could lead us to the real prize.”
True statement. If Sven allowed it.
“Wait, ‘when you were reviewing the scene.’ You mean, when you got that crazed psycho look on your face after you touched the dumpster?”
She glared at him. “I don’t have a crazed psycho face.”
“You do,” Dexx said. “But it’s cute. You know, when you’re not really crazed or psycho or, well, you know, possessed. Otherwise, it’s just adorable.”
Tony tucked one corner of his lips in. “How does that work? How do you review?”
She’d never actually told anyone before. A real partner. Two of them. So weird. “Usually after something like last night, a major event, the demon will have an excess of energy. If they touch something, I can touch it and review it like a time reel. Well, I call it a time reel. It’s like the moment that created the excess energy is recorded in that handp
rint.”
He frowned at her. “Huh. Starbucks?” He pointed just ahead and to the left at the sign.
She shook her head. “Kris was right. Her coffee really is better.” Which sucked because she and her really good coffee were up the mountain. Damn her and her “special roasting process.” It wasn’t just bunk.
“Okay.” Tony glanced in his rearview and shifted lanes. “So, what did you see?”
“The victim was walking down the street. The demon caught her by the throat. She fought. Her eyes glowed. Her nails grew. Then, he whispered something to her, she stopped fighting, and he snapped her neck. He then laid her on the ground, looked right where I was standing, and tucked the note under her arm.”
“That’s sounds like something Sven would orchestrate,” Dexx muttered.
“It does, but that demon wasn’t Sven.”
“And we have DNA,” Tony groaned.
Paige’s stomach twisted. “Yeah.”
“DNA of the wrong person.”
“Yeah.”
“Well.” Tony released a slow puff of breath. “We’re a bit lucky.”
“How so?” Luck was one thing she’d never really had an overabundance of.
“We have a paranormal in the lab.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She’s a fox spirit. Very bright. Good kid. I’ll let her know what we’re dealing with. She knows how to deal with things.”
“Great. Okay. We should—” Her phone screamed, “I’m a gummy bear. Oh, I’m a gummy bear,” as loudly as it could from her belt. Paige winced and pulled her phone out of the clip, swiping to answer. “Hey, Les.”
“Paige.” Leslie’s voice trembled.
Paige had been about to tell her sister that now wasn’t a good time, but Leslie’s voice never trembled. She turned to face the window and lowered her voice. “What happened? Is it the baby? Are you in labor?”
“Where are you?” Leslie asked instead. “You sound like you’re in a tin can.”
“We’re driving from an investigation.”
“Oh. I should let you get back to that.”
“Leslie.” Paige kept her voice steady and firm. “What happened?”
Silence met her question, then a sigh before Leslie whispered, her accent thick, “I was scammed.”
Paige cringed. “How much did they get?”
“Almost two thousand dollars.”
The Whiskey’s weren’t poor by any means. They had an old family trust, but that money was almost gone and it belonged to Alma, their grandmother. While Leslie and her family lived with Alma, they still paid rent and utilities and bought groceries. Then, there were her other bills. Leslie and Tru took care of the house. That was the cost of allowing them, basically, to take over the house with their brood.
“I don’t know what to do,” Leslie said, her drawl thickening. “I’m so stupid.”
There was a lot of that going around. “You’re not stupid, Les.”
“But I am! I knew. I knew something was hinky, but I went ahead and did it anyway.”
Paige winced and blew out a breath. “Check scam.”
“Yes.” Leslie’s voice was small and high. “I can’t believe I fell for it.”
“People fall for it all the time. That’s the reason why other people do it.”
“But who would do something like this? They have got to be really evil. Just evil.”
“Not all of them. No. Sometimes, they’re just really desperate.”
“Well, now I am! Am I supposed to go scam someone in return?”
“In actuality, you could.” Paige just had to get her sister out of freak-out mode so she could think through the process with a clear head. “The likelihood of you getting caught are slim to none.”
“I should—wait.” The quiver left Leslie’s voice. “Are you trying to tell me to break the law?”
“Sure. If you’re desperate enough and your moral code says it’s okay, do it. But be smart about it.”
Leslie whispered, “How would I do that?”
“I’m not going to tell you how, but if that’s a path you really want to go down, you’ll figure it out. People half as smart as you have done it. So…”
Leslie paused, then clicked her tongue. “No. I can’t do that. What if I pick someone who’s old and has no money, or someone who’s about to have a baby, or someone who doesn’t have a job, or someone who’s this close to losin’ their house?”
Paige breathed a sigh of relief. Crisis averted. “All good points.”
“But why would they fall for it? If they’re that close to doom, why would they help anyone? I thought I was helping this girl out.”
Paige shrugged. “People with less help more. It’s just the way it is. You got scammed. All it shows is that you still care for people, that you haven’t grown callous.”
“I might be now!”
“Well, yeah. For now. That’ll change, though, because you don’t suck as a human being. You still want to help people and, after all this blows over and things return to normal, you’ll go back to helping people.”
“And being stupid.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Les,” Paige said, tired and frustrated. She needed to listen to her own damned words. “You’ll just help people and be a bit more guarded. That’s all.”
Leslie sighed, but Paige could tell she was feeling better. The tone of Leslie’s voice was stronger, lower. She sounded more like herself. “What do I do?”
“Go to the bank. They won’t be able to do much, but they might be able to help at least a little. But be prepared. They might be insured, but they’re dicks to their clients. Every time. They love to take your money. But don’t ever ask for help. Then, go to the police. Call the fraud line. They’ll let you know where you have to go to file a report. Then take that case number and talk to the people you owe money to.”
“Seriously?”
“I didn’t say they’d all be willing to help. Cell phone companies? Dicks. Credit card companies. Dicks. Auto loans, student loans? They’re more willing to help.”
“Because they’re earning interest off my bad decision.”
“Exactly. Just be ready for them to say no, but they might work with you. You have to try.”
“And how do I get the money back?”
Paige shrugged deeply, pulling herself out of the conversation just enough to see how far they’d made it. They were leaving the town of Golden. Huzzah. “Sell stuff.”
“Shit.” Leslie growled. “I’m about to have a baby. This isn’t a good time.”
“Is it ever a good time to be scammed and have some asshole steal money from you?”
“Well, no.”
“Okay, then. Just do what you can. Does Tru have any vacation time he can cash out?”
“I’ll ask.”
“That’s another route.”
“I’m not going to ask Grandma.”
“Oh, good.” Paige widened her eyes, her breath forming a misty cloud on the window. “Because I was going to strongly advise against that.”
“You won’t…tell anyone, will you?”
Paige glanced at Tony and Dexx. “Well, I am in a car with people, so they know.”
“Dexx?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell him not to tell Grandma.”
“I will.”
“And you won’t?”
Paige could only guess at how embarrassing this entire thing was. “Nope. Not a word.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I almost didn’t tell you, you know.”
Paige frowned. “Why not?”
“Because you’re a cop. I didn’t want you to be all judgy.”
“Ah.” Paige could totally relate. She didn’t want to admit to anyone that, as the demon summoner, she’d fallen into a trap and couldn’t summon anymore. “Well, this is fairly common and just shows that you’re a decent human being. That’s all. Unfortunately, this was a bad experience, a lif
e lesson, and a costly one, but you’ll survive it.”
“You think so?”
“Sweetie, you bred a zoo. If you can do that, you can survive this.”
A breathy chuckle escaped Leslie. “Yeah. You’re right. Okay. Well, talking about the zoo, I should get back to it. I haven’t heard glass break in nearly twenty minutes.”
“Uh-oh. What could Tyler be up to?”
“What’s Mandy doing to him?”
Paige chuckled. “Right. Well, go through the attic. There might be some things up there you can sell. And—” She quickly did some math in her head. “—I can send you some money to help tide you over for a bit.”
“No.”
“I’m good. Trust me. I’m fine. Just understand that it’s a loan, so I’ll want it back sometime before you’re dead. Okay?” She wasn’t expecting to be paid back. Ever. She’d forgotten about the money in her savings in the first place. She didn’t have anything to spend it on. And it wasn’t that her sister wasn’t good for it, that she wouldn’t be able to pay it back. She’d called it a loan so Leslie would take it.
“Thanks, Pea.” Relief coated Leslie’s words with a thickened drawl. “For not sayin’ I told you so.”
“Well, I didn’t and there’s no need. Just don’t let yourself be fooled again. Now, I’ve got to go. I’ll wire the money over when I get home, which might be late.”
“Thank you, again. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” And she did. Her heart warmed with it, spreading down her arms. This wasn’t like the kind of warmth sex or a good work-out could offer. This was the kind of warmth experienced after a long duration of isolation. She hung up the phone.
Dexx sighed. “That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
“Mum’s the word.” He zipped his lips shut.
She turned to the window. It felt good to be reminded that her world wasn’t always about demons and murders and, now, paranormals. Her world included real life.
Sucked for Leslie.
But nice for Paige.
Paige looked at the crime scene. She used her witch vision. She searched for smells, magickal traces. Anything that might lead them to the demon responsible for Elizabeth Harwood’s murder.
Nothing.
Well, not all hunches panned out, which was the reason why so few actually survived as a detective. There was lot less adrenaline and a lot more work than Hollywood made it appear.
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