The Good, The Bad, And The Undead

Glenn stood, and I stared up at him. 'I'll get them. Stay put till I get back.'

I nodded as he left. Swiveling my chair from side to side, I waited, listening to the background chatter coming in. A smile eased over me. I hadn't realized how much I missed the camaraderie of my fellow I.S. runners. I knew if I went out of Glenn's office, the conversations would stop and the looks would go cold, but if I stayed here and listened, I could pretend someone might stop by to say hi, or ask my opinion on a tough case, or tell me a dirty joke to see me laugh.

Sighing, I rose to take Glenn's rat out of the bag. I set the ugly, beady-eyed thing on the cabinet where it could watch him. A scuffing at the door pulled me around. 'Oh. Hi,' I said, seeing that it wasn't Glenn.

'Ma'am.' The heavy FIB officer eyed first my leather pants, then my visitor's badge. I shifted so he could see better. The badge, not my pants.

'I'm Rachel,' I said. 'I'm helping Detective Glenn. He's getting some printouts.'

'Rachel Morgan?' he said. 'I thought you were an old hag.'

My mouth opened in anger, then shut in understanding. The last time he saw me, I probably did look like an old hag. 'That was a disguise,' I said as I crumpled the bag and threw it away. 'This is the real me.'

He ran his eyes over my outfit again. 'Okay.' He turned to leave, and I breathed easier.

He was gone when Glenn strode in, a decidedly preoccupied air about him. There was a nice-size packet of paper in his grip, and I thought the FIB's information gathering must be on par with the I.S. after all. He stood for a moment in the center of his office, then pushed the papers on his long table against the wall to one end. 'Here's the first one,' he said, dropping the reports on the cleared spot. 'I'll be right back with the ones from the basement.'

I froze in my reach for them. The first one? I had thought that was all of them. I took a breath to ask him, but he was gone. The thickness of the report was impressive. I wheeled my chair to the table and positioned it sideways so I wouldn't have my back to the door. Sitting, I crossed my legs and pulled the wad of pages into my lap.

I recognized the front picture of the first victim because the I.S. had released it to the papers. She had been a nice-looking older woman with a motherly smile. By the makeup and jewelry, it looked like they lifted her photo from a professional picture, like those poses you get for anniversaries and such. She had been three months from retiring from a security firm that designed magic-resistant safes. Died from 'complications from rape.' This was all old news. I shuffled to the coroner's report, my gaze dropping to the picture.

My gut clenched, and I flipped the report closed. Suddenly cold, I stared out of Glenn's door to the open offices. A phone rang, and someone picked it up. I took another breath, and held it. I forced myself to breathe, holding it again so I wouldn't hyperventilate.

I suppose, in a loose fashion, it could be considered rape. The woman's insides had been pulled out from between her legs and were dangling to her knees. I wondered how long she had stayed alive through the ordeal, then wished I hadn't. Stomach turning, I vowed to not look at any more pictures.

Fingers shaking, I tried to concentrate on the report. The FIB had been surprisingly through, leaving me with only one question. Stretching, I snagged the cordless phone from the desk. My jaw hurt from having clenched it too long as I dialed the number listed for next of kin.

An older man answered. 'No,' I assured him when he tried to hang up on me. 'I'm not a dating service. Vampiric Charms is an independent runner firm. I'm currently working with the FIB to identify the person who attacked your wife.'

The picture of her lying twisted and broken on the gurney flashed before me. I shoved it down to where it would probably stay until I tried to sleep. I hoped he hadn't seen the picture. I prayed he hadn't found her body.

'I apologize for calling, Mr. Graylin,' I said in my best professional voice. 'I have only one question. Did your wife happen to talk to a Mr. Trent Kalamack anytime before her death?'

'The councilman?' he said, his voice thick with astonishment. 'Is he a suspect?'

'Perish the thought,' I lied. 'I'm following up one of the faint leads that we have concerning a stalker working his way up to him.'

'Oh.' There was a moment of silence, then, 'Yes. As a matter of fact, we did.'

The zing of adrenaline pulled me upright.

'We met him at a play this spring,' the man was saying. 'I remember because it was the Pirates of Penzance, and I thought the lead pirate looked like Mr. Kalamack. We had dinner afterwards at Carew Tower and laughed about it. He's not in any danger, is he?'

'No,' I said, my heart pounding. 'I'd ask you to keep our line of investigation quiet until we've proven it false. I'm very sorry about your wife, Mr. Graylin. She was a lovely woman.'

'Thank you. I miss her.' He hung up the phone in the uncomfortable silence.

I set the phone down, waiting three heartbeats before whispering an exuberant, 'Yes!' Spinning my swivel chair around, I found Glenn standing in the doorway.

'What are you doing?' he asked, dropping another stack of papers before me.

I grinned, continuing to shift back and forth in my chair. 'Nothing.'

He went to his desk and punched a button on the phone's cradle, frowning as the last number called appeared on the tiny screen. 'I never said you could call these people.' His face went angry and his posture became stiff. 'That man is trying to put this behind him. He doesn't need you dredging it up for him again.'

'I only asked one question.' Legs crossed, I swiveled, smiling.

Glenn glanced behind him into the open offices. 'You are a guest here,' he said roughly. 'If you can't play by my rules—' He stopped. 'Why are you still smiling?'

'Mr. and Mrs. Graylin had dinner with Trent a month before she was attacked.'

The man straightened to his full height and drew back a step. His eyes narrowed.

'Mind if I call the next?' I asked.

He looked at the phone beside my hand, then back to the open floor. With a forced casualness, he shut his door halfway. 'Keep it down.'

Pleased with myself, I pulled the stack of papers closer. Glenn went back behind his computer, typing with an annoying slowness.

My mood quickly sobered as I scanned the coroner's report, skipping the picture portion this time. Apparently the man had been eaten alive from the extremities inward. They knew he had been alive at the time by the tearing pattern of the wounds. And they were fairly confident he had been eaten by the lack of body parts.

Trying to ignore the mental picture my imagination provided, I called the contact number. There was no answer, not even a machine. I called his former place of work next, my intuition settling into a nice groove at the name of the place: Seary Security.

The woman there was very nice, but she didn't know anything, telling me that Mr. Seary's wife was away at a 'health resort' trying to relearn how to sleep. She did look in her files, though, telling me that they had been contracted to install a safe on the Kalamack estate.

'Security…' I murmured, pinning Mr. Seary's packet to the bulletin board atop Glenn's sticky notes to get it out of my way. 'Hey, Glenn. You have any more of those sticky notes?'

He rummaged in his desk drawer, tossing me a pack, shortly followed by a pen. I scrawled the name of Mr. Seary's workplace and stuck it to his report. After a moment's thought, I did the same to the woman's, writing 'safe designer' on it. I added a second sticky note with 'Talked to T' circled in black ink.

A scuffing in the hallway brought my eyes up from the third report. I made a noncommittal smile recognizing the overweight cop, minibag of chips in hand. He acknowledged me and Glenn's nod, coming to a rest in the doorway. 'Glenn's got you doing his secretary work?' he asked, his good-old-boy tone almost thick enough to cut.

'No,' I said, smiling sweetly. 'Trent Kalamack is the witch hunter, and I'm just taking a moment to tie the links together.'

He grunted, eyeing Glenn. Glenn wearily returned his look, adding a shrug. 'Rachel,' he said, 'this is Officer Dunlop. Dunlop, this is Ms. Morgan.'

'Charmed,' I said, not offering my hand lest I get it back covered in potato-chip grease.

Not getting the hint, the man walked in, crumbs falling to the tile floor. 'Whatcha got?' he said, coming to peer at my thick reports stuck to the board atop Glenn's faded sticky notes.