to talk. There was nothing productive that could come of that. At least nothing she could see. Her best bet was to cut her losses. Get dressed, go to the funeral, find the killer then…what?
Cass quickly realized that getting dressed was a much easier option than trying to answer that question.
The day was perfect for a funeral. It was cold, wet, gray and solemn. Cass figured if she was ever going to be buried, she would want it to be on a day like this. The sun shouldn’t shine for death. The sky shouldn’t be blue. The weather shouldn’t be comfortable.
After all, there was nothing comfortable about death.
People should be wet and shivering and sad. They should look miserable because it was a miserable task.
Expectedly, at Lauren’s funeral, they did.
There had been a much larger crowd at the church. Malcolm was Catholic, and apparently Lauren had been, too, until her conversion to Wicca. Cass didn’t know if Lauren might have wanted a Wiccan service, but, given Malcolm’s devotion to her, she had no doubt he would have done that if he knew how to bury someone in that tradition.
As he had mentioned to Cass, the only funeral for witches he could imagine was a stake and a fire, and he said he didn’t believe that was appropriate.
The city’s elite turned out to pay their respects. The mayor, the chief of police, Dougie’s captain and sundry assemblymen. The church was packed with people, and all Cass could wonder was how a man who knew so many people could have so few friends. Some employees had stopped and spoken with him for a time. There was also a slew of Lauren’s friends, from high school, college and her coven who offered their condolences. Lauren apparently didn’t have Malcolm’s issues and seemed to be not only popular but extremely missed.
But there was no one person who was there just because they cared for him. He stood straight and stoic in the church during the service. And now as the priest concluded the rites of burial, he remained the same. Only a smattering of people had followed from the church to the cemetery. Lauren’s closest friends, Malcolm and Cass stood in a tight circle around the open grave upon which the coffin sat ready at some near time to be lowered into the ground.
Once the priest backed off, one of Lauren’s witch friends offered a prayer as well. When she finished, she was the first to lay a flower on the coffin. Everyone still around the site followed suit and eventually left. There was no announcement to have people back at Malcolm’s house, and Cass knew that if there had been, only a few people might have come.
Glancing around the graveyard, she searched for anyone who looked to be lurking. She’d felt nothing during the church service other than the familiar tingling of potential contact that always came when she was in a large group. Anytime she was in a crowd of that many, the odds were someone from the other side would try to make contact. She intentionally shut her mind to it, her belief being that if the monster showed up it would be too strong to be blocked out and, as for the rest, she didn’t need the distraction.
With everyone pretty much gone except for Malcolm, who was thanking the elderly priest for his kind words, she felt absolutely nothing. No sensations at all that would lead her to think whoever brought the monster was close.
Still, she wasn’t sorry that she had come.
Her eyes fell on two figures who stepped out of a car at the bottom of the hill on which Lauren was to be buried. She spotted Dougie and instantly recognized his partner, Steve.
Steve stayed by the car, but Dougie started walking toward them. No doubt they’d had the same idea about the killer wanting to be at the funeral. They had stood in the back of the church, and the car, she knew, had been driving around the cemetery for a while.
His expression was grim, and Cass had to assume that he hadn’t had any more luck than she had had.
“Hey,” he began cautiously.
“Hi.”
“Can we talk?”
Cass looked over her shoulder. Malcolm was now listening to the priest, who was obviously trying to offer words of comfort to him. She doubted they would help, but it was what priests did, after all.
“Sure.” She followed him away from the grave site, as it seemed disrespectful to talk in front of the coffin. He stopped under a tree and faced her.
“What are you doing here?”
“Same thing you are, I guess. Looking for Lauren’s killer.”
“And how the hell would you know if you spotted him?”
Cass thought about Malcolm’s suspicion that the person they were searching for might be a woman but figured there was no point in clouding the issue now. It was time to let Dougie know what had been happening; she just didn’t want to do it here. After their fight, for lack of a better word, she’d thought she would have been happy if she never had to see him again, but she could see she was being ridiculous. This case was more important than what he’d done to her.
What he’d done and what she’d done. Yes, he had used her. But, as Malcolm had said, she had used him, too. Was there really any difference?
Regardless of who was to blame, Cass wasn’t so immature as to withhold information that might be useful to a murder investigation because she happened to be mad at the lead detective. “We need to talk about this, Dougie. A lot has happened since the other night. The thing that brought me to the psychic’s apartment that morning-I didn’t want to tell you then because it seemed so far-fetched, but it’s happened twice since and I think it may be important. It’s why I’m here.”
“Detective.” Cass turned and saw that Malcolm was a step behind her.
“Mr. McDonough. Pardon our intrusion during this difficult time for you,” he said in the manner of someone who has had to give the same speech several times in the past. Cass didn’t doubt that, as a homicide detective, Dougie spent a lot of time at funerals. “My partner and I are here because we wanted to see if there were any suspicious people in attendance today. It’s not unusual for a killer to want to be a part of his victim’s funeral.”
“I understand. I appreciate your efforts.”
“I was also looking for Cass.”
That was news. “Looking for me? Why?”
Dougie turned back to her, his expression even more grim than before. In fact, he looked downright worried. “There’s been a development in the case. One you need to know about. It involves you.”
“Me?”
He looked away from her as if trying to figure out how to say what he needed to say.
“The murders being so close together puzzled me. Yeah, serial killers tend to kill in a particular area. It’s like their hunting ground, whatever. But there was something too coincidental about the two murders. I didn’t get the impression that these victims were chosen at random. A witch who worked at a New Age store on Addison. A psychic who gave readings down the block. I knew that they weren’t the only eccentrics that lived on Addison.”
“Technically, Silvia lived around the corner,” Cass pointed out.
“No, her building actually faces Addison. So I went back to your old apartment, the one you lived in only a few months ago.”
Cass shook her head, not understanding what he was saying.
“It was a hunch. Just a hunch but…”
“Oh, my God,” Malcolm whispered.
“We found another body. A woman with dark hair. Her name was Carol Lyman. She had moved in right after you left. New to the city, she didn’t know a lot of people. She’d paid her rent and didn’t really know anyone else in the building so no one missed her right away. She’s been dead for almost six days. And her tongue was missing.”
“Dougie, what are you saying?”
Cass felt a tingle on the back of her neck, but this time it wasn’t a precursor of contact. It was that feeling when something horrible was about to happen and there was nothing that could be done to stop it. Her gut clenched and she felt herself break out in a cold sweat. She knew what he was going to say even before he said it.
“We think the killer is after you, Cass. We think he’s been looking for you all along.”
