“Business is so bad you’ve resorted to robbing honest folks now, is it?”
“Teddy, it’s a damn body freezer. It’s not doing you any good in your shed and people aren’t lining up around the corner to take it off your hands.”
“Fine. Screw it.”
Finally. Something went my way today. “That was a nice bit with the autolysis. Been going to night school in your spare time?”
“I’m an angel of
“Yeah, yeah. I love you too, Teddy.”
I hung up. The down payment on the freezer would take a big bite out of my remaining five grand, and I had to keep money on hand to work the case. I could always ask the Pack to up my budget.
I’d rather eat dirt.
CHAPTER 7
IT TOOK US FOUR HOURS TO PROCESS THE SCENE. WE dusted the workshop for fingerprints and lifted enough partials to use up a whole roll of tape. Crawling on my hands and knees looking for evidence and taking samples of the urine stains did a number on me. My knee was a trouble magnet—first my aunt ripped it up, then the marathon of fights to the death that made me the Pack’s alpha female had nearly done it in. I’d hobbled around with a cane for a month, a circumstance aggravated by the fact that I could only use said cane in my quarters, because doing it in plain view of the Pack telegraphed weakness. Now the knee had developed a steady annoying ache, and I had this absurd feeling that if only I could jam something sharp in there, the pain would go away.
We finished the workshop and walked the house. It was a spacious log cabin, all clean honey-colored wood and oversized windows. Adam led a simple life. I found enough clothes for a couple of weeks and a few dog-eared books, mostly engineering, physics, and magic theory. Andrea cataloged the groceries and reported lots of peanut butter and jam in the fridge. The Red Guardsmen’s cabin came equipped with cooking utensils and an assortment of pots and pans hanging from the hooks in a wooden frame. The layer of dust on the pans told me they hadn’t been touched in a while.
I found a picture of a young blond woman by Adam’s bed. She was looking over the ocean, her face serious and tinted with resignation and sadness. Adam’s wife. I bagged it and put it into our Jeep.
We took everyone’s statements, made everyone sign everything, and drove back through Sibley’s twisted roads onto Johnson Ferry. The traffic mess at the bridge had dissolved. An MSDU Humvee painted in blotches of slate gray and charcoal sat on the shoulder. Next to it a short, stocky man with dark brown hair packed an m- scanner into a van with PAD written on the side. The man’s red hoodie read WIZARD AT LARGE.
I pulled over to the shoulder.
“Do you know him?” Andrea asked.
“Luther Dillon. He used to moonlight for the Guild a couple of years back. Hang on a second, I’ll be right back.”
I slipped out of the car and walked back along the shoulder, hands in plain view.
Luther saw me and sighed dramatically. “Stay away. At least three feet.”
“Why?”
“The Order fired you for screwing up. Hence, you are besmirched. It might rub off on me.”
If Andrea wanted to kill Ted, she would have to stand in line. “I didn’t get fired, I quit. And considering that I wrapped up your troll for you, I expected a warmer reception.”
Luther bowed and clapped. “Bravo! Bravissimo! Encore, encore! Was that kind of what you were hoping for?”
“That will do.”
From where I stood, I could see the path leading down the slope and under the bridge to the troll’s bunker. “How did it go?”
“He’s sleeping like a baby.” Luther shut the van’s door and leaned against the vehicle. “Ate two hours out of yours truly’s already-busy schedule, too.”
“The least you can do since your wards failed.”
Luther pushed from the car. “My wards don’t fail. They’re gone.” He made a fist and snapped his fingers open. “Poof! No residue, no trace, nothing. Never seen anything like it. It’s as if . . .”
“They had never been there,” I finished. Déjà vu.
Luther focused on me like a pointer on a pheasant. “You know something.”
When in trouble, stall. “Me?”
“You. Tell me.”
“Can’t.” First, the wards around Adam’s workshop. Then here. Crossing the bridge was the fastest way out of Sibley.
“Kate, stop screwing around. If someone is going around the city yanking wards out of the ground, I need to know about it.”
“I can’t, Luther. Client confidentiality.”
“You want me to haul you in for questioning?” Luther said. “Because I’ll do it. I’ll do it right now. Watch me. I know people who will gently persuade you to be forthcoming.”
I looked at him. “You really need to work on your threats. I can’t tell if you’re threatening me or inviting me for tea.”
“The two aren’t mutually exclusive. One cup of the tea at the station and you will tell me everything you know out of sheer self-preservation.” He held his hand out and bent his fingers back and forth in the universal “bring it on” gesture. “Out with it. Or else.”
Andrea stepped out of the Jeep and leaned against the bumper. Apparently she felt I needed backup. If we were lucky, Grendel wouldn’t tear through plastic and devour de Harven’s corpse in Hector’s back.
“Luther, to haul someone in, you have to have probable cause, which you don’t.”
A faint scrape of a foot against dirt came from behind the van. I leaned to glance around Luther and saw a man walking up the path from the water. He wore black pants, black boots, a gray shirt, and a black tactical vest over it. Black aviator shades hid his eyes. Add dark blond hair cropped short and a clean-shaven jaw, and you had yourself a genuine Agent of Law Enforcement. Shane Andersen, knight of the Order.
Luther sighed.
“You think he’s got ‘government badass’ tattooed on his chest?” I murmured.
A faint grimace skewed Luther’s mouth. “And ‘I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you’ on his ass.”
Luther wasn’t hard to irritate, but there was some genuine hate there. “What did he do?”
Luther glanced at me. “He called me ‘support.’ I’m not support; I’m the damn primary on this case. Without me, they’d still be trying to mince the troll into a meat pie.”
Shane hero-swaggered his way to the top of the path and stopped before us. “Hello, Kate.”
“Hi.”
He glanced at Luther. “Is she bothering you?”
“No.”
“Mm-hm.” Shane lowered his glasses on his nose and gave me his version of a severe stare.
I leaned a little toward Luther. “Is this the part where I faint in fear?”
Luther bit his lip. “He might also accept falling to your knees and holding your hands in humble supplication. Makes it easier for him to slap the cuffs on.”
“Your presence here is a distraction,” Shane said, obviously savoring every word. “You’re keeping a PAD officer from his duties. Move along, Kate. There is nothing to see here.”
Asshole. Let’s see, two MSDU vehicles, cops down by the river. Too many witnesses. My brain served up a headline: BEAST LORD’S MATE PUNCHES KNIGHT OF THE ORDER IN MOUTH, KNOCKS OUT FOUR TEETH. Yeah, not today.
