She nodded and scrolled through the old case file. “This is my case file.” She hung her head.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning this is when my sisters and I were rescued from Adrianna.” She shook her head. “I have to step away from the case.”
“O’Donald hasn’t caught on if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I can’t handle this, Abby.” She shut the computer screen. “It’d be like asking you to continuously go over the details of the Ira case.”
I was going to argue, and then I remembered that I was still having nightmares about that. “I’ll handle it. You stay safe.”
She nodded and stood up. “I’m going to go take a walk.”
“Okay. Clear your head.” I watched as she walked out, and I turned back to my computer.
It was the same case, which meant we could pull that one out of the cold case files. Everything was the same, and I should have seen it sooner. I hung my head feeling like I’d failed somewhere.
I shook my head. It didn’t matter now. Now I had all the pieces, and I could make them fit. We had a location on Adrianna. We knew she was behind the torture and killing. We had witnesses. No motivation, but that didn’t always come when you were dealing with black magic and insanity.
What I needed to know was the spell she was using and how to bring her in or kill her. If she was truly immortal, I would need to take precautions.
I typed up my notes and sent them in an email to Nick, CC’ing O’Donald, letting them know my thoughts, what progress Liz had made, and letting them know that Liz was stepping down from the case.
It wasn’t long before Nick was blowing up my phone. “What do you mean that she’s stepping away from the case?”
“She’s too close to it. It’s a conflict of interest.” I tried to leave it at that.
“Stop hiding shit, Abby.”
“Look, Liz is a victim of this person. She had to step down for her mental sanity.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end. “Okay. I’ll see you Monday then? I’m sure you already have a plan in place.”
“I have a location even. But I can’t trust you at my back.” I hung up the phone and looked at the computer screen.
I knew exactly who I’d be taking in as back up, and it wasn’t anyone from PIB.
I had half expected Nick to call back, but he didn’t. Maybe he knew better than to push me right now.
I shut the computer and leaned back in my chair. I needed to call Merick and ask him to be my back up, but I also wanted to wait until I got through the party.
Someone cleared their throat in the doorway of the dining room, and I looked up to Levi standing there. “May I interrupt?”
“It’s a bit early for you to be awake, isn’t it?” I asked and started to gather the papers.
“I couldn’t sleep.” He shrugged. “Seems to me that you’re busy. Do you need me to leave?”
I shook my head. “No, I was just cleaning up. I’m trying to figure out how to take Adrianna out.”
“Out?”
“Or into custody. Whichever happens.”
Levi nodded. “Liz have any ideas?”
“No, she stepped down from the case as she should have. She needs time to heal and recover.”
“Do you think you can handle Adrianna without her?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m going to ask Merick to go with me. Maybe Oliver.”
“I have Oliver out doing something. He won’t be available.”
That made me pause. “He won’t be here tomorrow night?”
“No, I’m sorry. I can’t have him here for this.”
That made me suspicious. “Why?”
“I want to keep him away from Samuel as well. I don’t trust Oliver to not fuck up the safety net we’ve put in place.”
I crossed my arms. “Is this the safety net where you turn me before Samuel does?”
“That is not a real option. It had come up in a discussion, that is it. It was not fair of Mario to throw that at you.” Levi shook his head. “I have talked to him about his need to try and scare you into hiding.”
“Good, because as soon as this party is over, I go back to work. O’Donald has already called me back from vacation. I told him I was out of town until Monday.”
Levi was silent for a moment. “Okay.”
“Did you need to talk to me about something?”
He nodded. “You’ve been getting strange phone calls that are leading to old crime scenes, correct?”
“Yeah, I haven’t had one in a few days.”
“That’s what Oliver is hunting down. We think it has to do with Nick.”
“I’m sure it does. We were partners on both those cases. Just like I’m sure when my car shows back up, it’ll be crushed.”
Levi chuckled. “At a crime scene?”
“It didn’t show up at a crime scene last time. It showed up at a protest, and it was the one where I shot the stupid werewolf skinner.”
“Ah, and started a riot.”
“And started a riot,” I agreed and stretched. “So, you have Oliver hunting that down. Do you have Catalina watching Nick as well?”
“No, I figured if he was at PIB and behaving himself, you could keep an eye on him.”
I snorted. “I’ll do the best I can. Do we have more news on the woman?”
“No. We’ve run her through every database that we have access to, and nothing comes up.”
“You don’t have access to PIB’s database anymore, do you?”
“No, O’Donald took that from us.” Levi sounded less than pleased, but I smiled.
“I got my rights
