Heat prickled the back of her neck. Glen worked out. He wasn’t so muscle-strapped as to look like a gym monkey, but he had excellent definition: shoulders, biceps, pecs, abs. She suspected he was far stronger and more agile than he appeared in his gray pinstripe suits.
Fia’s gaze drifted from his flat abdominals to the dark line of hair that led from his belly button south.
Glen backed up, his face flushed. “I really am sorry.”
She followed him into the hall, arms crossed over her breasts, making an effort not to look at him. She felt vulnerable, the two of them standing awkwardly in their underwear in her mother’s hall, and it left her off-balance and unsure of herself. Not a state she found herself in too often.
“No, it’s okay. I’m the one who should be apologizing.” Unable to suppress a chuckle of nervous laughter, she covered her mouth with her hand. “College kids,” she explained. “They have no idea of the hours the rest of us keep.”
Glen stepped into his room. “Five-thirty?”
“Five-thirty in the dining room,” she agreed. “Good night.”
She waited until the paneled door closed and then, groaning, strolled back into her room. “Thanks a lot, guys.”
The door behind her swung shut and the lock clicked. Both Fin and Regan had strong telekinetic powers, among other gifts. It used to gall her that some sept members could walk through walls, move an apple across the table without touching it, shape-shift or make objects burst into flames while she could do none of those things. But Gair had once told her she had the gift of humanity and that was what made her special to the sept and vital to their survival. Days like today, she wondered if he had just said it to make her feel better….
“What did we do?” Fin asked innocently.
Her brothers lay on their backs in her bed, arms tucked comfortably under their heads.
“You have to be careful around him,” Fia warned, a full step past annoyed.
Regan frowned.
“No, I’m serious.” She kept her voice down. “He’s pretty perceptive for a human. And whether I like it or not, he and I are working together until we solve this case.”
“I can’t believe Mahon and Bobby are both dead.” Fin sat up, running his fingers through his dark, short hair. “You think slayers have found us again?”
“There’s no evidence to suggest it.” She perched on the edge of the bed. “With Bobby, I was hoping the beheading was just a sick coincidence, some strung-out doper, but now…”
“You think he has something to do with it?” Regan nodded in the direction of the wall.
Regan never made any bones about who he liked and who he disliked and she could tell he disliked Glen Duncan for no reason other than the fact that he resembled and carried the same surname as Ian had. “He was called in after Bobby was murdered.”
“I don’t care. The resemblance is just too weird.”
“Jesuz, it’s not that great a resemblance.” Fin got out of the bed. “All the Scots look alike, you know that. Inbreeding. Come on.” He waved to Regan. “Fee needs to get some sleep.”
She followed them to the door that unlocked and opened without anyone touching it. She placed her hand on Fin’s shoulder as he followed Regan out the door. No words passed between them verbally or telepathically, but his smile told her she had his support. Hers told him how much she appreciated it.
Fia sat on the front step of her parents’ house and checked her voice messages at the office. She and Glen had had soup and sandwiches at six-thirty in the dining room and then he’d excused himself to make phone calls. They had decided to head over to the pub to have a pint and he’d offered to meet her there, but Fia was waiting for him. The less time he spent alone with the Kahills, the safer she thought he’d be. They’d all be.
That especially held true now that Regan was back in town. Although he’d been behaving himself for years…decades, he had a reputation for exploiting humans. It was Regan who had turned both Victor and Shannon into vampires. He’d found Shannon in an eighteenth-century tavern; she’d been a serving wench who had chosen the wrong traveler to share a roll in the hay. Victor had been a nineteenth-century ship’s captain who had befriended Regan, given him safe passage from Europe when Regan had been on the run. Regan had rewarded Victor’s friendship by holding him captive, and on a blood binge, taken the man’s life, replacing it with everlasting damnation.
Shannon had accepted her lot in life, and held no ill will against Regan or any of the other Kahills, but Victor resented Regan’s intervention. Despised him for it. Hated them all. At least twice a winter, Victor got drunk and walked up and down the darkened streets of Clare Point, threatening to “Murder ever damned last one of ’em, while they slept in their beds.”
Because Regan had slipped not once, but twice in recent years, there were many in the sept who didn’t believe he was ready to participate in the committee that exterminated the men and women they hunted. Regan was trying hard to win the town over, saying all the right things, demonstrating the right actions, but Fia wasn’t falling for it. She didn’t believe he could be trusted and she believed in the age-old adage that a leopard did not change his spots.
Then she wondered, was she being hypocritical? Perhaps. But her circumstances were far different than Regan’s.
Fia skipped through several messages on voice mail; all matters she could see to when she got back to the office.
She and Glen had spent half the day in the woods, then returned to town for interviews. They’d combed the wildlife preserve for any possible evidence and taken additional photographs. As with Bobby, they had been unable to locate the head and extremities. The few footprints Petey had discovered the day before were of such poor quality that Glen had been unable to take a cast. It appeared that some common gasoline had been used as the accelerant again, though they would have to wait on the lab test results for confirmation.
The only concrete evidence they had in the case, so far, besides Mahon’s body, was what appeared to be a rake handle, the rake portion broken off, which was used to impale him, and a small cardboard box found in the woods. The empty box had contained generic, lawn-sized garbage bags. No other trash was found within half a mile of the crime scene, which made them both suspect that the box was connected to the murder. Had the killer placed Mahon’s head and hands inside garbage bags? It would account for the lack of a blood trail.
Both the rake handle and the box had been bagged as evidence and sent by courier to the lab in Baltimore. They had a few more people to interview in the morning, but Fia didn’t expect any surprises. Mahon had left his house on Tuesday morning, his day off after working Labor Day weekend, to go bird-watching on the game preserve. Everyone in the town knew Mahon was an avid bird-watcher. Year round, he could be found once or twice a week on his days off, walking the paths of the Clare Point preserve, or one of the other parks in the state, such as Bombay Hook.
Nothing had been different about Tuesday morning except that Mahon had not come back in time to make his ten-thirty dental appointment and when his wife had been unable to get him on his cell, a neighbor had offered to look for him.
As Fia listened to her office messages, she methodically saved and deleted. There was a call from Lieutenant Sutton in Lansdowne; she didn’t say what she wanted, only that it was in reference to the Casey Mulvine case. Casey Mulvine. Fia now had a name to go with the image of the dead girl in the alley.
Joseph had also called, cheerfully asking her to give him a ring when she got a chance. He spoke as if nothing had happened in the bar. As if he didn’t know that she’d been looking for him for the last two weeks.
Finishing her messages, Fia set her cell on the step beside her, drawing her knees up into her arms. She honestly didn’t know which call disturbed her more, the one from Joseph or Lieutenant Sutton. Joseph for obvious reasons, but what was it about the girl’s case that had gotten under her skin?
She pressed her thumb and forefinger to her temples, f
ighting a flutter of panic in her chest. She felt as if her life was crumbling around her. A short month ago, she’d been happy, confident in her job. With help from Dr. Kettleman, she felt as if her personal life was in check…or at least getting there. And now—
The front door opened and closed and Fia heard Glen approach behind her. “Hey,” she called lightly. “You ready to go?”
“How do you do that?”
Still seated on the step because she was drop-dead tired, she glanced over her shoulder. “Do what?”
“Know who’s behind you. Any one of half a dozen people could have just walked out that door, yet you knew it was me.”
She shrugged. “Aren’t cops supposed to be observant?”
“Yeah, but you’re creepy observant, Fee.”
It was the first time he had ever called her that. She knew he’d heard others call her by the nickname, but from him it seemed more…personal. “So I’ve got good hearing.” She stood.
“So I’ve noticed.”
She looked back at him and started down the sidewalk. “You talk to Stacy? You were gone awhile.” She had no idea why she’d asked, why she even cared, but she suspected that was why he had excused himself. So that he could talk with his lover in private. She wondered if they had phone sex.
“Yeah, the conversation got pretty intense. Eggshell or white linen.”
“Pardon?”
He walked beside her. The sun was beginning to set and the air had cooled off a little. The neighbors had cut their grass and the sweet scent filled Fia’s nostrils, mingling with the aroma of steaks cooked on the grill somewhere on the same block. She relaxed a little. It felt good to be in the open air, away from the stench of Mahon’s blood and burnt flesh that she had still been able to smell in the woods today.
They crossed the street, stepping back onto the sidewalk. The quaint streetlamps were beginning to come on, but not in unison, so as they walked, sometimes his face was illuminated, other times it was in shadow.
“My fiancée,” Glen explained. “She’s trying to decide what color tablecloths to rent from the linen service for our wedding reception.”
Fia glanced at him, unable to suppress her disdain. “And you care?”
“Not a damned bit.”
He grinned and she found herself smiling. “So when’s the big day?”
“April tenth.”
She wanted to comment that he didn’t seem all that excited, but she held her tongue. Fia was finding that, while she resisted, while she tried to remain professional and removed, she was liking Glen more than she wanted to. She appreciated him for his similarities to Ian, but she also appreciated his dissimilarities. Glen was a little more easygoing. He took himself less seriously. He smiled more.
They walked the next block in comfortable silence.
“You know, you didn’t say anything about last night,” she said. “My brothers.”
“I thought I’d already embarrassed myself enough.”
“Why should you be embarrassed?” She stopped at the end of the sidewalk and waited for a car to crawl by. Uncle John waved from the open window of his pickup. “I thought you looked pretty fine wearing nothing but your underwear and a Glock, Special Agent Duncan.”
“You have a pretty fine ass yourself, Special Agent Kahill.”
Fia was searching for a snappy response when she spotted a couple of teenagers standing in a huddle outside the Quick-Zip Market. Columns of cigarette smoke snaked over their heads. It was Kaleigh, Petey’s daughter Katy, one of the Cahall girls, and three human teenagers. At once, Fia raised her guard.
There were anxious whispers and one of the boys flicked a cigarette butt onto the sidewalk, grinding it out with his flip-flop. Another butt landed in front of the soda machine.
“Kaleigh.” Fia walked up to the group; Glen hung back a few steps.
“Fia,” Kaleigh’s shoulders were stiff, her tone resentful. “Agent Duncan.” She acknowledged him with a lift of her chin.
Fia looked to the teenaged boy who stood closest to Kaleigh. Had to be the one she had mentioned. The surfer. “Special Agent Kahill, FBI, and you?” She offered her hand.
The dark, shaggy-haired teen had a surprisingly firm grip. “Derek Neuman, ma’am.”
“My partner, Special Agent Duncan.”
The teen reached around one of the girls to shake Glen’s hand. “Sir.”
The boy seemed polite enough, better mannered than most teens, but that didn’t change the fact that he was a human.
“So what are you up to?” Fia asked, addressing Kaleigh but meaning the whole group.
Kaleigh shrugged. “Going to get an ice-cream cone, I guess.”
“You being careful?” Fia glanced at the others, now including them in the conversation. “Even if you don’t read the papers or watch the news, I know you’re aware of the recent homicides.”
Derek looked from Fia to Kaleigh and back at Fia again. “We figured we were safe.” He hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his cargo shorts and slumped. “You know, as long as we were hanging out together. Safety in numbers and all that sh—” He started to say shit, but finished with a mangled version of stuff.
Glen appeared amused. Fia wasn’t. Hadn’t she and Kaleigh just recently discussed the dangers of human boys? And Derek Neuman certainly looked older than fifteen to Fia.
You know this is dangerous, Kaleigh. Didn’t we talk about this? Fia telepathed. Someone’s going to get hurt.
Fia could have sworn Kaleigh flinched, but if she understood Fia’s thoughts, she gave no indication.
It’s okay, Fee. Katy’s thoughts were clear and strong. It’s just ice cream. We won’t let anything happen to her.
“Isn’t it a school night?” Fia looked back to Kaleigh. “Don’t you have to be home?”
“It’s not even nine yet,” Kaleigh groaned. Then, to her friends, “Come on, if we’re going.”
Fia watched the group of teens move down the sidewalk, more as a single entity than individuals. “I can’t believe their parents are letting them wander the streets.”
“Come on, they’re teenagers and invincible. I know I certainly thought I was at that age. And they’re right. They probably are pretty safe. Both of our victims were alone.”
They halted at the door to the Hill and Fia watched the teens as they appeared to get smaller and smaller. They were not headed uptown in the direction of the ice-cream shop or any market that might sell ice cream. They walked toward the bay and the docks. Fia sensed trouble in the air but couldn’t get a take on what was going on in the little group. The teen girls’ thoughts were too muddled, too unfocused to read, as was often the case at their age.
Glen opened the pub door and music and voices tumbled into the semidarkness of the street. “Come on, stop worrying,” he urged. “Let me buy you a pint.”
Fia drank her single pint, and again Glen had three. But this time, unlike that first night after Bobby’s death, when they walked home, Glen seemed completely in control of his faculties and kept well away from her. They briefly discussed the case and the decision that they would return to their respective offices tomorrow. Both were frustrated by the lack of evidence, but were hoping that once Mahon’s autopsy report and the lab reports from the evidence were back, they’d have some direction to go. There had to be some similarity between Bobby and Mahon’s deaths, beyond the obvious.
As they walked up the sidewalk of the B and B, Fia spotted a form that suddenly morphed into the silhouette of a man. It…he stood on the front porch, watching. Waiting.
Glen spotted him a second later. “I think I’ll head upstairs,” he said, mounting the steps. “See you in the morning.”
Fia waited until Glen closed the door behind him before she turned to the dark figure. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He glanced at the door Glen had just walked through, taking his time before he spoke. “I was wondering the same about you.”
Chapter 12
Fia walked
up onto the porch. “You can’t do that around him.”
“Do what?”
“You know very well what.” She slugged him in the arm.
Arlan laughed and draped his arm casually around her shoulder. “I was messin’ with you. He didn’t see me. He didn’t see anything. Humans never do. I don’t know why you waste your time with them.”
She moved toward the railing, but not entirely out of his reach.
“He was assigned to the case. I didn’t have any choice in the matter.”
“I’m not talking about the case and you know it, Fee. I saw you at the Hill. You’re involved.”
“I’m not involved. He’s my partner. On this case,” she clarified. “There’s just no way around the jurisdiction issue, not with another body. Not now.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I haven’t really gotten time to talk to you. To tell you how sorry I am about Mahon.” He paused. “I…I know you were friends.”
Lovers. He knew they had been lovers once, too. But that had been a long time ago.
Fia was surprised by the tears that stung the backs of her eyelids. “Thanks. He was good to me after…” She let her sentence trail into silence.
Arlan’s fingers found the nape of her neck and teased a sensitive spot.
“What do you think’s happening? Slayers, or worse?”
The weight of his arm on her shoulder was comforting, but a part of her wanted to shrug him off. Maybe she didn’t want to be comforted. Maybe she didn’t deserve it. Her family needed her and she wasn’t coming through for them. “Worse? There’s worse?”
“What if it’s one of us?”
“Arlan, that’s a horrible thing to say.”
“You were in the pub. You heard them. Everyone is thinking it, even if they’re not coming out and saying it.”
“I don’t listen in on people’s thoughts, uninvited,” she said, chastising. They were both quiet for a minute. “Besides, it wouldn’t be possible. How could someone keep something like that to themselves? We’d know. One of us would know.”
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