That was it. The note was unsigned, but it looked like a woman’s handwriting.
They’d lost three of their kids, and while I didn’t have kids of my own, a lifetime of Hollywood movies had convinced me it was the worst thing that could happen. Except they only knew it had happened in odd, lonely moments.
Why the Bentons? Who had targeted their kids, and why?
The passenger door swung open. Annalise climbed in.
“Everything go okay?” I asked.
“I’m hungry. Let’s find someplace to eat.”
I started the van. “What did you find out?” She didn’t answer. I drove toward downtown.
Her silence annoyed me, but then I had a scary thought. What if I hadn’t distracted Ms. Finkler for long enough? What if she’d caught Annalise in her kitchen?
Annalise had spells that could deal with people without taking their lives-I’d seen them in action-but she didn’t always use them. She hadn’t been all that concerned about catching Meg and Douglas in her green flame. They had survived only because I had knocked them back.
Annalise only cared about one thing: she searched for people who cast magic spells, especially those that summoned predators, and she killed them. Nothing else mattered to her. Certainly not innocent bystanders. They were expendable.
And, to tell the truth, I’d seen a little bit of her world, and I understood her. I’d seen what predators could do. With their appetites, they could devour every living thing on the planet.
Maybe we needed people like Annalise-people who were willing to do what ever it took to protect us. Without her, and others like her, maybe we wouldn’t even be here now.
But I really hoped she hadn’t killed that sad woman.
Annalise held the scrap wood in her hands, staring at the designs as if they were tea leaves. What ever she could read there, it was pissing her off.
I turned into the business district and pulled into the parking lot of a Thai restaurant. I didn’t know how good it would be, but pad thai wasn’t rocket science and I’d been craving it for months. They didn’t exactly let you order in from a jail cell.
“What are we doing here?” Annalise asked.
“Grub.”
“I don’t eat this. Find a place that serves burgers or steaks.”
I sighed to let her know how disappointed I was and found a diner just a block farther down the road. As we entered, Annalise placed the scrap wood on the doorjamb. As far as I could tell, the designs continued to churn slowly, without any change. We went inside and found a booth.
By the clock above the counter it was nearly eleven. We’d had a busy day.
There were three or four other customers. All of them thought we were worth a good, long look. I couldn’t blame them. Annalise was quite a sight in her oversized firefighter’s jacket, tattoos, and clipped red hair. Standing next to her, I looked almost reputable.
The waitress came to our table. “New in town?” she asked. Annalise grunted.
“Just drove in,” I said. I smiled politely, knowing what some waitstaff do to the food when they don’t like a customer.
“Looking for work at the plant, I guess?”
“They really need people, huh?”
“Sure do,” she said. She took our order. Annalise asked for iced tea and a grilled steak. When she was told they were out, she ordered a cheeseburger with bacon. It sounded so good I ordered the same thing but with a cola. Maybe the sugar would keep me awake.
As the waitress started to turn away, Annalise grabbed her hand. The waitress tried to wrench herself free but couldn’t break Annalise’s grip.
Annalise laid the scrap wood on the woman’s wrist, then let her go. The waitress quickly retreated behind the counter.
Great. I hoped I wouldn’t be eating her spit later.
Annalise stared out the window. She looked distinctly unhappy.
I smiled. “Nice little town, huh?”
“I’ve been to some that were nicer. Smaller, too.”
“So what’s be-“
Annalise abruptly stood and moved toward the counter. The other customers had turned back to their own conversations, but one of the men at the counter tapped his companion. They watched her approach. Both were in their fifties and wore blue overalls smeared with machine oil.
“Excuse me,” she said to them. She laid the wood against the first man’s arm, then the second’s. She moved to a booth in the corner and the last of the diner’s customers: a pair of ladies who must have been in their seventies.
