As the sound of his footsteps moved down the hallway, she entered the living room. A framed photo sat on the fireplace mantel. Taken during the summer in the house’s backyard, it depicted a smiling Rachel flanked by a middle-aged man and woman. Her parents.
They didn’t look any more familiar than Nicholas had the first time Ash saw his picture. How could that be? How could she feel this much fear and dread, this terror that they’d been hurt—or worse—and yet have no memory of them at all? How could she recognize the location where the picture had been taken, but have no memory of being there?
“There’s no one here,” Nicholas said from behind her. “Ash, we have to go now.”
Yes, they did. She joined him in the hallway. “We need to find out what happened.”
“We will.” His gaze dropped to the photo she still held, but he didn’t tell her to put it back. Perhaps he realized she wouldn’t have. “Who would have put that tape across the door?”
The township didn’t have a police force. “The county sheriff. His office is in Duluth.”
“We’ll head back, then. Look, you can’t go with me. There might be family, friends at the sheriff’s or the hospital. People who’d recognize Rachel. So I’ll take you to the bed-and-breakfast. I have to leave you there alone. Do you have any weapons in your cache?”
That mental storage space. “If I do, I don’t know how to get to them.”
“I’ll give you some, then. What can you use?” He lifted his crossbow. “This?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
“A sword? I have one in the car.”
She glanced down at her hands. Could she use a sword? “I don’t know that, either.”
His mouth tightened. “Can you fight hand-to-hand?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Because if the Guardians were here, they are obviously looking for you.”
“And if they knew exactly where I was, they’d already be on me. Wouldn’t they?” When he nodded, she said, “So chances are, they don’t know I’ll be at the B and B, either.”
He must have agreed. With a nod, he said, “All right. I’ll drop you off, and you stay in our room.”
Easy enough. “And if they do come?”
Nicholas started for the door, his expression grim. “Can you run?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’d better run faster than they do.”
The crime scene photos were worse than the house had been.
Taylor closed the Boyles’ murder file and passed it to Revoire. No longer the farmer, he’d changed into the same “federal agent” suit that she wore. Appearance was always important. Not many of the smaller law enforcement agencies had heard of Special Investigations, even though they were a legitimate division within the Homeland Security Department.
“They aren’t pretty,” Sheriff Brand said, nodding at the photos. He was the kind of cop Taylor liked: professional, courteous, damn sure of his job and how to do it. He hadn’t put up a fuss when they’d arrived and asked to look at the Boyle case, claiming that the MO matched that of a serial killer they’d been tracking. He’d simply taken a look at their credentials, checked them out, and invited them into his office.
“No, they aren’t,” Taylor agreed. Horrific—and she knew Brand felt the same. He wasn’t interested in getting involved in a pissing contest with the feds. He reserved his anger for the man who’d done it, and his pity for the couple killed. “Did you know them?”
Brand shook his head. “I talked with them a few times after their girl, Rachel, went missing six years back. But she was working over in London at the time, so there wasn’t much to do. A shame. Pretty girl, sharp as a tack. We looked at Steve Johnson then, just routine—she’d had some trouble with him—but they hadn’t seen each other since she left that school in Chicago.”
Rachel Boyle. Why did that name sound familiar? Taylor couldn’t immediately recall, but she remembered the photo on the fireplace mantel at the Boyles’ house. Just the three of them.
“No other family?”
“Nope. It was a neighbor who spotted Steve Johnson sitting on their front porch swing holding that butcher knife. No coat, no shoes, all cleaned up and just staring off into space. She didn’t recognize him, so she called it in.” Brand shook his head. “That part of the county, we get a hunting accident now and then. A few meth heads, a few missing hikers. Nothing like this. Sick.”
So they had Steve Johnson pretty much red-handed, and with a confession on top of it. Case closed for the locals. Taylor and Revoire wouldn’t be able to do the same so easily. They wouldn’t pursue Steve Johnson. The courts could take care of him, and influenced by a demon or not, the man had made a choice. Free will mattered. He’d made a choice to seek out the Boyles. He’d made a choice to pick up a knife. He’d made a choice to murder them. At any point, he could have chosen differently, and there was nothing the demon could have done to force him.
But Johnson hadn’t resisted, and his actions had served the demon well. The choice Johnson had made would probably send him to Hell, too.
Brand looked to Revoire, who’d finished flipping through photos and closed the file. “And you still think we have your guy in our lockup?”
“Probably not,” Revoire said. “There’s a distinct difference in the blood spatter. There’s no control. This looks like he was angry. He knew the victims?”
“Not well.” The sheriff sat behind his desk, removed his hat. “They’re from up Lakewood, Steve Johnson has been here in Duluth for nine years now. Came in from Chicago. Says he was following Rachel, but when she moved to England and then disappeared . . . he found himself a few other girlfriends. He says that he never contacted the Boyles before Saturday morning.”
“But he claimed that Rachel’s ghost visited him?”
“Yes. Visited, and said that she hadn’t gone missing. Said she hadn’t been killed by some rich man. That her parents had done it, and she needed Johnson to get revenge for her.” Brand sighed. “The defense is already working up their insanity plea.”
“And what do you think?” Taylor wondered.
“I don’t think it’ll fly. He’s been working up to this for years. Rachel had a restraining order on him after he stalked her on campus. We’ve had other complaints from other girls. No violence in the priors, so this is unusual— but he said flat-out in the interview that he knew it wasn’t right, but he had to do it for her. So he’s got something loose up there, but he knows right from wrong. He’ll stand trial.”
So the demon had probably known about Johnson’s obsession with Rachel, had known exactly who to push. To know that, it had probably accessed court records and found the restraining order. There might be a paper trail.
Taylor and Revoire would start there.
They took their leave of Sheriff Brand, walked to the front of the building. Teleporting around a busy city in the middle of the day was out, except in an emergency. Taylor didn’t mind. Growing up in San Francisco, she hadn’t seen a lot of snow, but it was falling outside and she wouldn’t get cold.
She didn’t think Revoire was ready to teleport again yet, anyway. She caught his eye. “All right?”
“Fine. Just reminded of why I can’t always tell the difference between humans and demons. That little shit deserves to burn.”
Yes. Johnson had his issues, but when it came down to it, he’d wanted to kill the Boyles. Taylor had about as much sympathy for him as she did serial killers who blamed their mamas.
She nodded her agreement, squinting a little as they emerged from the dim office to the bright fall of white. The sun wasn’t out, but the daylight and the reflection off the snow still glared on her sensitive eyes.
“Do you recall anything odd about Rachel Boyle? The name is nagging at me.” And years on the force told her not to ignore those little niggles.
Revoire shook his head. “I remember when it happened. It caught the news in this area a couple of times. But nothing stood out. Most people thought her rich boyfriend did it.”
Rich boyfriend. Taylor stopped as the niggle turned into a full-blown itch. “No, not the news. The dungeon.”
