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“Slackers,” O’Shea shouted, and then muttered under his breath when Martins, his new partner, scuttled away to his desk with wide eyes. O’Shea knew he was the talk of the office, knew the other Agents looked sideways at him for taking this obsession with Adamson to a whole new level. Ten years he’d followed her, ten years he’d learned her habits, her training, even her taste in food. All so he could drag her down. He didn’t care what the other agents thought, never had, but knew it made life just that much more difficult when it came to getting the higher ups to agree to requisitions. Taking slow breaths, O’Shea calmed himself, not wanting to admit the true reason for his anger.
That kiss had set him on fire. He could still feel it, the pressure of her lips, the dainty flick of her tongue over his. He let out a groan and slid into his chair. The worst thing possible for any officer of the law was to get hung up on a suspect, and that’s what Adamson was, a suspect. It didn’t matter that the case was cold. It didn’t matter that there was literally no proof she’d killed her sister; he had a gut feeling something was off about her, and he was sticking with his instincts.
“Hey, partner.”
O’Shea lifted his eyes to see Martins fiddling with his tie, nerves coming through with every twitch of his fingers. “I was thinking, maybe we should tail her. See where she goes.”
Shaking his head, O’Shea pointed to a tracking device on his desk that blinked a muted red. “I’ve already tagged her Jeep. Goes on the fritz now and again, but we can follow her anywhere. If it’s working.”
Martins lit up like a freaking Christmas tree. “Awesome, let’s go then.”
God, O’Shea hated the young ones. Had he ever been that ridiculously eager? Like a dog just waiting to be set on a bird?
The last thing O’Shea wanted was to see Adamson again. Auburn hair, gold, green and chocolate eyes that could skewer a man at ten paces, not to mention a body lean and hard from the rigorous regime she followed. He could still feel the brush of his hand under her breast, and he clenched his fingers to fight off the sensation.
Fuck! His pulse hammered. He’d been after her since she was sixteen; what had happened this time that was so different? He’d frisked her before. Running his hands through his hair, he tried to think about how she’d killed her little sister, but all he could see was the pain in her stunning eyes when he’d accused her of the crime. How soft and vulnerable she’d looked in that moment.
Adamson’s little sister’s body had never been recovered, but Adamson had run from the scene, gone into hiding for two weeks before they found her. Of course, they couldn’t make any of the charges stick, but he’d been trained to see guilt. And that was the whole crux of it. Adamson was guilty. He knew it, she knew it; the only problem was he just couldn’t prove it.
Making a decision, he stood up. “Martins, let’s go. She’s not going to slip past us this time.”
No matter how good of a kisser she was.
3
Before I went any further with the search, I did what had become more than a habit for me—something closer to a ritual. I had two stops to make. The first one was the local toy store, “Hannigans Shenanigans,” where I purchased a large stuffed elephant. It was my required gift for the second location I was headed to.
The house I parked in front of could barely be called a house. A shanty or a shack was a better description; it had just enough insulation to make it through the coldest part of our winters here in the badlands. The whole thing was on a slant, tilted crazily to the left, seemingly propped up by the pile of junk reaching the eaves on that side of the house. The floorboards groaned under my weight and the smell of rotting wood filled my nose.
“That you, baby girl? I thought I told you not to come around till your momma cleaned you up some. Crazy blue socks everywhere.” Her soprano voice echoed through the thin wood and I shook my head. Obviously not one of her more lucid days.
As far as adults went, Giselle was one of the few who had my sympathies. She was born with the ability to see a person’s past, present, and probable future. But just like a carpenter that only has so many hammer swings in him before his elbow blows, she only had so many viewings in her before her mind broke.
There isn’t a lot for me to say about Giselle. She’s a broken woman, still in her prime, but aged prematurely by her calling in life. Since her mind wandered, there were very few people she would see, but she had an affinity for stuffed animals. And I didn’t get all freaked out by the voices that showed up on occasion around her. Not ghosts, but some sort of leftover from the guides she’d acquired in life. Above all that, she was my mentor and the closest thing I had to a mother now.
“It’s just me, Giselle. Rylee. I brought you a new stuffed toy. An elephant, I know you don’t have one of those.”
I pulled the large grey velvet-covered elephant from behind my back. She came to the screen door, and I got a good look at her. I hadn’t seen her for some time; I’d been so busy with tracking that at least a month had gone by since our last visit, and the time hadn’t been kind to her. She’d lost weight and there were patches of skin showing through her clothes, skin that was no longer a healthy pink, but mottled and age-spotted. Dirty blonde hair pulled back into a severe bun, stretching her features even more, leaving her sunken cheeks and vacant brown eyes the only thing noticeable. My heart sank at the sight of her. I didn’t want to believe I was losing her to the madness, even though she’d warned me about it when she’d first taken me under her wing.
“Rylee? Ah, I remember now. Rylee. Yes, come inside dear; show me what you’ve brought for Giselle.”
She shuffled away and I followed her in, breathing shallowly; trying not to think of all the possibilities for the smells. This was not good. Milly and I were going to have to do something about this, no matter how hard it might be. Giselle had raised the two of us; now we’d have to take care of her. Scattered junk littered the floor, old newspaper, bags of groceries un-emptied and stacks of books to the ceiling—and those were just the things I could identify. It was worse every time I came.
The back kitchen was as full as the rest of the house, only I suspected this was where the majority of the bad smells came from.
Giselle dusted off a rickety gold chair, circa 1960, and I sat down. She pulled a green vinyl chair with rips in it close and grabbed my hand before I could even ask her, her eyes suddenly focusing, as an intelligence that hadn’t been there a moment before filled them.
Because I’m an Immune, even psychics can’t read me; it’s like I don’t exist. But I have lines in my hand and reading those lines isn’t really magic. It’s more like knowing how to read a map and understand all the symbols and variances.
“Ah, little Rylee, you have big trouble coming your way. Always the same with you though.” She turned my hand first one way, then the other, her grip intense.
“You will find someone, a man from your past, who will become a part of your future.”
“You mean like a lover?” I hated the almost hopeful tone in my voice, the way it sounded, but I needed to be as clear as possible. A little romance never hurt anyone, but if it got in the way of finding India, or any other child for that matter, it wouldn’t matter how I felt about him. In the back of my mind, I wondered if it was O’Shea and quickly pushed the thought away. One kiss did not a lover make him.
“Obsession.” She whispered the word and a cool wind wrapped around my ankles. “Death. Power. They are all tangled here.” She pointed to the middle of my hand where indeed, there seemed to be several lines tangled about one another. “But you will also find your own past in this circle of three.”
The house groaned as a gust of wind pummeled the barely standing structure. I shivered and Giselle did too.
“You must go now. I have said enough for today. Where are your blue socks, child?” Her eyes slid into vacancy once more, and I grabbed her hands, snagging her attention.
I asked her what I always asked. “The ch
ild I seek, will I find her in time?”
Giselle’s eyes flickered and the intelligence returned, though I could see it waver. “This child you seek, she is strong; you have time, I do not know if it will be enough, but you have time.”
I stood to leave, pressing the stuffed elephant into her now empty hands. For all that she loved her stuffed animals, I never once saw one after I had left it with her, and I still had no idea what she did with them. I brought them now because it was one of the few times I got to see her smile.
“Wait.”
I froze in the hallway, Giselle’s voice drawing me back in.
“There is another child, a child of golden sunshine and blue skies that seeks for you.”
Every muscle in me tensed, my body paralyzed by the seer’s words. It couldn’t be what I thought, but I whispered her name without meaning to.
“Berget.”
The cold wind whipped through the house again, papers scattering about, a stack of books toppling over, and chaos ensued.
Giselle scrambled to her feet and rushed past me, caterwauling like a banshee about blue socks, her hair coming loose from her bun and the strands of it whipping about her face, obscuring her features. She attempted to right the things the wind demolished. It only made matters worse; for every pile she straightened, another fell, taking two more with it.
I shook myself free of the paralysis and reached out for Giselle, grabbing her by her bony shoulders, shocked at how thin she’d become.
“Let me go, devil spawn! Blood seeker! Killer! Whore! Let me go!” I didn’t take the names personally. Though some were accurate. You can’t get too pissy when people are telling you the truth.
I hung onto her shoulders, steered her back into the kitchen and plunked her into the green chair. She went limp and a voice came softly to my ear. “Sing for her, child.” I didn’t look around; I knew it was one of her guides. They loved Giselle, and so I did what they said. I sang.
“Trip upon trenchers, and dance upon dishes, my mother sent me for some barm, some barm; she bid me go lightly, and come again quickly, for fear the young men should do me some harm. Yet didn’t you see, yet didn’t you see, what naughty tricks they played on me? They broke my pitcher, spilt the water, cursed my mother, chided her daughter and kissed my sister instead of me.”
I trailed off, the old song from my childhood catching in my throat. They didn’t call it a melancholy tune for nothing.
“So nice, dear. Perhaps you’ll sing to me again sometime?” Giselle’s coherent question surprised me, but I took it in stride.
“Of course, Giselle. Will you be all right now?”
She cocked her head and squinted her eyes at me. “Child, go home and get your blue socks; you’ll need them before the week is out.”
I left her there in her kitchen muttering about blue socks, the elephant gripped in her frail hands and a cool wind blowing through her house.
4
The older style cell phone shook a little in my hand. I’d found if I held it just right it didn’t crap out on me too often. Pinching the phone between thumb and forefinger, I squeezed until the power bar came on. Milly’s number was normally embedded in my brain, but this time I had to look it up.
Millicent, Milly to her friends, was my closest friend and the other girl Giselle raised. The term raised gives the impression that we were little when she took us on. I was sixteen and Milly was a year younger. Both orphaned in our own ways, me twice, if you want to get picky, both of us needing a mentor for the innate abilities that were becoming apparent.
“Hello?” Her soft voice was raspy and it was obvious I’d pulled her from sleep.
“Hey, witch. Get out of bed. We’ve got a bit of a problem.” I switched ears with the phone and turned the heat up with my now free hand. I could still feel the wind from Giselle’s house in my bones.
She groaned. “Listen, I’ve barely been in bed for two hours. You know I don’t run on the same schedule as most people.”
I nodded and said, “I know, I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important. It’s Giselle. We need to get her out of that house. I have some money from this next case, but it won’t be enough for a care home.”
She gave a sharp gasp, and I heard the bed creak in the background, then a soft exclamation that wasn’t Milly. I smiled. She was always having “sleepovers.” That was something I didn’t have the time for, or the inclination—at least right now. Matters of the heart were just too messy, in my opinion. I thought again about what Giselle said, about a man coming into my life. No, this was not the time for that kind of crap.
Footsteps and a door closing told me we had a little more privacy. “What’s wrong?”
“We have to move her. I don’t know how, but that house is falling down around her ears. And the madness has moved quickly in the last few months. I don’t think she’ll survive the winter on her own. She’s lost a lot of weight.” I paused and scanned the streets. “Hang on a minute, I think I’m lost.”
I took a left turn and navigated through a sub-division. Bismarck wasn’t a huge town, but it was expanding, and when all the houses were cookie cutter look a-likes, it was easy to get turned around.
Slowing for a stop sign, I continued. “I’m on a salvage right now.” That was my word for going after kids, just in case we had anyone listening in. “I don’t know how long it will be, at least a week maybe. If you can start to get Giselle out, I’ll help you when I get back.”
Silence on the other end of the line. “Milly? Are you still there?”
“Rylee, meet me at the coffee shop, the one on East Ave. I’ve got . . . news.”
My phone took that moment to blink off, and no matter how I smashed and squeezed it I couldn’t get it to flick back on.
“Damn!” I spun the wheel and did a tight u-turn. The coffee shop, “Bean done Right,” was about five minutes away. Another detour, but for Milly I would take it.
The parking lot was empty; in between breakfast and lunch the coffee shop slowed right down. Milly stood outside, arms wrapped around her upper body, dark brown hair pulled into a high ponytail. I waved and hopped out of the Jeep.
“Hey. What’s going on?” I didn’t ask her how she was; it was obvious. Upset, scared, uncertain. Which for Milly was odd. She was the one who was organized, always knew how to lay out a difficult salvage; rarely did her emotions get the better of her. Except the horny ones, that is.
“I can’t help her, Rylee.” Her green eyes flicked away from mine. “I can’t be here for long, but I had to tell you in person.”
Shock filtered through me. This wasn’t like Milly, not at all. What the hell was going on? I didn’t get a chance to ask before she rushed on and answered my unspoken question.
“The Coven wants me to break ties with all people who aren’t witches. That includes you and Giselle. This is what I’ve always wanted. I’m so sorry.”
Her eyes were swollen, her lips trembled, and her slight frame shook. I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder and she flinched as though I’d hit her.
“Do you mean like forever?” My voice came through on a whisper, my heart breaking at the thought of losing one more person in my life.
Her hiccupping sobs were all the answer I needed. I looked away from her, stared into the coffee shop, with the empty seats and the cashier staring out at me.
“What about the salvages? Can you walk away from them?” What I was really asking, what we both knew I meant was, could she walk away from kids who’d been like us: alone, searching for a home, for a safe haven, broken souls who would need mending.
She covered her face with her hands. “I can’t have” —she hiccupped another sob— “both. I can’t have the Coven and . . . you and Giselle. This is hard for me. They offered me this spot a month ago.”
That would explain her absence lately.
I would beg if I had to. On this case, more than any other, I needed her and I would fight to keep her as my friend. “This girl was taken from De
arborn Park. Just like Berget, even the same day as her. Milly, please.” I stepped closer to her. Again she flinched. “Please help me this one last time.”
Tears tracked down her face and her eyes lifted to meet mine, only to drop again. Shoulders slumped, and she continued to cry. “I’m . . .sorry. I know how hard it is for you to face this . . . now. But–” She twitched as I stepped closer.
That was enough of that. If she was going to be afraid of me, then I’d give her a reason. I grabbed her arms and shook her. “You took an oath, the same as I did, to find these missing kids. You promised, you selfish bitch!” I bit the words, anger making me mean.
“You’re hurting me,” she said, but didn’t try to pull away.
“Good, that makes two of us.” Still, I dropped my hands and backed up, shaking my head. A slow deep breath calmed my racing heart. “They shouldn’t try to take you away, that isn’t right.”
“It’s how they do things,” she said, rubbing her arms. “I’ve got to go. They can’t know that I’ve seen you.”
Milly turned her back and walked away from me, pausing at the edge of the building. “Goodbye, Rylee.” The tears in her voice did me in.
“You can always come home, Milly. No matter what, you know that right? I’ll always look out for you.” It was the best I could do. My own emotions were choking me. I didn’t want to be left behind again.
Her words hitched into sobs. I couldn’t be truly angry with her. We both had wanted only one thing growing up: to fit in. And now she had a chance, and I couldn’t begrudge her that, no matter how much it hurt. Swallowing the pain back, I slipped into the Jeep. “You’ll always be my witch, Milly.” I pulled the door closed, shutting out the wind and my best friend. Only then did I let the tears fall and allow myself to feel the pain of being abandoned once again.
5
I didn’t have time to relocate my mentor if I was to save India. But there was no way I was going to let Giselle stay in her house with what felt like an early winter coming on, and I didn’t have the funds to put her up in a care home; they were too expensive and the wait to get in was long. Maybe after this job I would move her out to my place; but then I immediately dismissed the thought. Giselle didn’t like to leave her home, never had, even when her mind had been mostly intact. This was about to get difficult.
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