“I got more than a minute if you need it,” he said, looking at me with concern.
I took a deep breath. “There’s a link between Thomas here, the death out at the Nature Center, and the lady who died after running into my car.”
“You?”
I nodded.
He lit a cigarette, and I shifted upwind of him. “I knew about Thomas, of course,” he said. “And Tracy Gordon told me about the Stark woman.” He blew out smoke and didn’t look at me. “What’s the deal with Landrieu?”
“Gave me heroin when I was fourteen,” I said, not looking at him either, but I could still see him twitch in surprise. “I overdosed. Nearly died.”
“Damn,” he muttered. He flicked ash onto the sidewalk. “Y’think someone’s trying to set you up?”
“That, or someone thinks they’re doing me a favor,” I replied.
He made a sour noise in the back of his throat. “Well, it obviously doesn’t look good that people you have plenty of reason to dislike are falling over dead. But I also don’t believe for a second that you’re doing it.”
I inclined my head. “I appreciate your faith in me.”
“Only because I know you’d find a way to hide the bodies.” He snorted, smiled. “Well, if someone’s trying to set you up, we need to beat whoever it is to the punch, and let the chief know what’s going on.”
A knot of tension in my chest began to unwind. “Yeah. Makes sense.”
“Now, let me ask you a question,” he said, peering at me.
I waited.
“These deaths. Are they part of all that magic woowoo crap you do?”
I bit back the urge to snicker at his reaction and kept my face sober. “Probably so,” I replied.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered. He dropped the cigarette to the sidewalk and ground it out under his heel. “I’ll fill the chief in. I’ll also need to reassign the Landrieu case.”
“Understood.”
“You need anything else from me?”
I shook my head. “I’m good. Thanks, Sarge.”
“See you in the morning, then. Now get the fuck off my car.”
I gave him a mock salute and stepped back from his car. After he drove off I looked around to see if Jill was finished up. She was leaning against her van with her hands stuffed into her pockets, which led me to assume she was done and was waiting for me.
“You okay?” I asked her as I approached and got a good look at her. She definitely wasn’t her usual perky self.
She gave me a wan smile. “Stomach’s been acting up lately.”
“Ugh, I can sympathize.” I shook my wrist with the cuff on it. “Eilahn just gave me this thing—blocks the arcane and keeps me from being summoned—but it makes me feel queasy all the time.” Then I shot her a warning look. “But if you get me sick for real I’m going to be pissed.”
A flash of her usual humor lit her eyes. “And what would you do then? I can outrun you.”
“That’s what cars are for, bitch,” I retorted with a grin.
“So what’s the deal with you and your ex-boyfriends?” She eyed me, slight frown puckering her forehead. Her tone was joking, but I saw worry in her eyes.
I muttered a curse. “I think someone’s trying to set me up.” I quickly recapped everything I knew, including the
“Maybe someone thinks they’re doing you a favor?” she suggested in an unconscious echo of my earlier remark, though it was clear that even she didn’t really believe it could be true.
“Yeah, well if they think that, I sure wish they’d come forward so that I could thank them with a really hard punch in the neck,” I said with a dark scowl.
Jill let out a peal of laughter. “Oh, good lord, you’ve been spending way too much time with that demon bodyguard of yours.”
I grinned. “Careful. I’m sure she’s around here somehow. She probably heard that.”
“How does this killer know that all these people fucked with your life?” she asked, sobering.
I rubbed my eyes. “Dunno. Damn near everyone knows about my history with Thomas, and I guess it wouldn’t be too hard to find out about my dad’s death. But Barry Landrieu? Only a few people know about that.”
Jill opened her mouth to speak then closed it as Pellini approached.
“Betcha it’s a drug overdose,” he said as he did his best to hoist his pants a little higher under his gut. “Fucking loser. What the fuck did you ever see in that dickhead, Gillian?”
Spreading my hands, I said, “Dude. I plead temporary insanity.” I knew the answer, though. I was lonely and desperate, and Thomas acted like he understood the lifestyle of a cop. After all, he’d been a fireman. Of course, later I found out that he’d been fired for a laundry list of infractions—everything from insubordination to violations of safety protocols that put his coworkers at risk.
Pellini huffed out a breath under his mustache. “He was a fucking whiny bitch, too. I was booking a prisoner into the jail same time he got brought in, and he was crying like a little kid who’d lost his puppy. What a dumbfuck.”
“You won’t get any argument from me,” I said.
He waddled off. Jill watched him go, then shot her attention back to me. “The jail,” she said. “These people all went through the jail here.”
I blinked. “That’s right.” I thought furiously for a moment. “And…my name would be in the records, in the victim impact statements.”
“Which means that whoever the summoner is, he or she has access to the arrest reports!”
“But it’s been long enough that those are public record now,” I pointed out, wincing. “That could be anybody.”
Jill frowned. “True. But what are the odds that whoever’s doing this saw you listed as a victim somewhere and then decided to see if there were any other instances? Isn’t it more likely that someone interested in finding people you didn’t care for would check to see if you’re listed as victim on any police reports?”
I considered her theory. It made sense. More sense than the theories I already had, which were nonexistent. “It’s possible,” I admitted, “but that’s still an insanely large pool. Not just law enforcement, but anyone who works in records, the DA’s office, the public defender’s office.…”
“Okay, okay!” She held her hands up in surrender. “But we can rule out David the barista, right?” she said with a laugh.
I tapped my chin. “Fine. We can eliminate David the barista as a suspect. For now! But if he turns out to be our summoner, then I’ll never let you live it down.”
“Deal!”
My phone buzzed with a text message from Tessa.
“Damn,” I muttered, stomach sinking. I glanced over at Jill. “Portal at the Nature Center. There goes my last hope that all of this was one big happy coincidence.”
She winced. “And still no clue what these portals are for?”
“Nothing solid.”
“So what now?”
“First, I’ll restore my aunt’s wards,” I said. “But after that…Well, three people are dead, I’m the most likely suspect, and I have no idea what direction to go next.” I flashed her a tight smile. “Therefore, I’m going to go home and go to bed.”
She gave my arm a light punch, smiled. “For once, you have your priorities in order.”
Chapter 13
