“We should go,” she said quickly, cutting him off before he could say anything. “Do you need to get…you know, the dress?”
He paused for a moment but then nodded and made for the room off the living room that was separated by two folding doors. When Malcolm pushed them aside she could see that the room was almost as small as hers back at the apartment. But Lauren had a dresser. Nice.
Cass watched him sort through the different hangers, stopping occasionally to give one outfit more consideration. Or maybe he was just remembering the last time he’d seen her in it. Again, she felt a twinge, just a twinge, though, of sympathy for a brother who was now alone in this world.
Finally he extracted a hanger.
A small pain behind her eyes signaled contact, but Cass didn’t even bother with forming the room. This message was quick and clear.
“Not that one,” Cass called to him. He scowled, but she shrugged it off. “Pick again.”
“Something blue,” she added.
He pulled out a soft, periwinkle dress that was light and whimsical. The perfect dress for a practicing witch who regularly purchased fairies.
“Perfect,” Cass told him.
“Is that you talking or…” He stopped himself before he could finish the thought.
“Both.”
He sighed. “Right. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Chapter 7
“I don’t get it,” Dougie began after they sat down in a back booth in a downtown Philadelphia bar near Penn’s Landing. “After the way he spoke to you, why would you agree to go anywhere with McDonough?”
Cass had called Dougie as soon as she’d gotten home and told him everything. Malcolm’s visit, the message from Lauren, the ticket. Everything but the near strangling attempt. She knew Dougie would go macho on her, and she wasn’t in the mood for a lecture on why she should avoid Malcolm McDonough.
Reaching up she brushed her neck with her fingers, sliding them over the sensitive skin. That tingle of sensation she’d felt when he had touched her had stayed with her all afternoon, had even followed her into her sleep when she had tried to make up for the rest she’d lost the previous night.
Even now, several hours later, it still bothered her.
Something had happened when he’d touched her. Some feeling or energy had been transmitted. Cass had no vocabulary to explain it, only that it had happened and that it was related to Lauren.
When he’d dropped her off at her place, he’d again performed the ritual of opening her car door for her and she’d paused for a moment. The temptation to ask him if he’d felt anything…odd…when they’d touched had been palpable, but, in the end, the words wouldn’t come out. Besides, with his reluctance to rehash the incident, she’d doubted he would have told her the truth anyway.
“Worried he might kill me?”
“Not really. Worried he might make you feel bad though.”
“He didn’t. He has enough regrets as it is. He says they weren’t close, but they were in the ways that count. He loved her and she loved him, or the connection wouldn’t be as strong.”
“Is that true? It’s stronger when…”
She knew where he was going and nodded. “When the connection between the two people is strong in life, that seems to follow after death. At least, it’s easier to hear the person speaking and understand what they’re saying. Lauren was loud and clear and pretty insistent.”
“You never told me that.”
No, because it invited the inevitable question, which she now had to answer. “When I hear Claire, she’s very clear.”
He frowned. “I didn’t ask.”
“Okay.” Cass reached into her purse and extracted the Ziploc bag containing what could be evidence. She slid it across the table toward him.
Dougie smiled as he held up the Baggie. “Worried about contamination?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“It’s doubtful we’ll get prints off of it, but we’ll see. You ever had a voice tell you about a clue before?”
“No, but keep in mind it might not be a clue to her murder.”
He scrunched up his face. “Huh? Why point you to something unless it could help solve her murder?”
“Sometimes the dead aren’t very interested in the means of their death. When they make contact, it’s typically because they want resolution. That ticket could be about anything, really. Her relationship with her brother, with someone else. It’s not necessarily tied to her killer.”
“So you’re telling me even the dead make lousy witnesses.”
“To their own murders? Yep. It’s not as if they’re casual observers.”
“Yeah, but you went over there for this. My guess is you think this is related.”
It was a gut hunch. Nothing more. Cass nodded. “I think it might be.”
Dougie held the bag up and studied the ticket a little more closely. “I can’t believe our guys missed it.”
“It was stuffed in the pages of a magazine. The magazine was dusted for prints, but I don’t think anyone not specifically looking for it would have found it.”
“Baltimore,” he murmured. “Early a.m. That’s a huge commuter train; it’s going to be tough to pin down.”
They were interrupted by the appearance of their young waitress. “Wings and beer to start?” he asked Cass.
Wings and beer: that was seduction, Philadelphia-style.
“Sure,” Cass answered carefully, wondering if this had just turned into a dinner date. Doug had insisted on meeting her for dinner when she’d told him about the ticket. When she’d hesitated, he’d pointed out that either she needed to come to his place to drop it off or he was coming to her to get it, so unless she wanted to cook for him, her only other option was to meet him out.
Cass could only really cook eggs. The choice was obvious.
The waitress took the order and left. Dougie nonchalantly pocketed the Baggie in his coat.
“You’re not going to lose it?”
He raised his eyebrows. “I’ve got two dead women in two days, with their tongues missing, and you think I’m going to lose what might be my biggest break. Hello, do you know me? I’m Doug Brody. I’ve been a detective for ten years.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I guess I’m nervous.”
“Yeah and I know why. You ready to talk about what brought you outside this morning?”
“What was her name?” Cass interjected in an obvious attempt to move him off the subject. “The dead woman from this morning?”
“Silvia, Silvia Biagi. She lived in the apartment where you found her. Made a meager living with tarot cards, palm readings, tea leaves. Whatever. Also seems she did some late-night telemarketing. The way it looks, our guy came in for a reading and then he attacked her. They fought. There was definitely evidence of a struggle. We found some hair that wasn’t hers. Short and dark colored. We also got some skin from under her fingernails, but so far no matches. Then our guy stabbed her and took the tongue. Only this time, he did it while she was still alive. He ran out and left the door open. She was crawling outside to get help. We think she was hoping to get up to the sidewalk where someone would find her, but she bled out before that happened.”
Cass wrapped her arms around herself to keep away the sudden chill that descended on her. She’d still been alive. What possessed a person to commit such a brutal act?
