He’d failed here in Washaway, but what if he hunted down a new spell, or bought one directly from his anonymous Internet buddy? Kripke was like a guy who’d tried to buy an A-bomb or a vial of anthrax. I couldn’t arrest him, but could I let him go?
Annalise had warned me about this. She’d told me that, because I was part of the society, it was my job to make corpses. And yeah, if I’d been ruthless with Ursula, no one would have known I was on the estate and the floating storm wouldn’t have been summoned to hunt me down. I didn’t like it, but being soft on these people had cost lives.
Kripke cleared his throat. “You’re trying to decide whether you should kill me, right? Because I tried to buy the sapphire dog.”
“Hell, yeah,” I said.
“You don’t have to,” he said. “I can help you find TheLastKing. I can even connect you to the others in my group. Some of them claim to have a full spell or two.”
“You’re offering your friends to me to save your life?”
I expected him to make excuses, but all he said was: “Yes.” At least he was as blunt with himself as he was with others.
Kripke had given me an excuse to spare him, and I grasped at it. If someone in the society wanted to kill him later, they could do it after they’d collected his buddies’ spell books.
“Give me your wallet.” He did. I took out his license and made a point of studying the address, then I tossed it back to him. “I’m not going to drive you out of town, and if you offer me money again, I’m going to punch you in the mouth, understand?”
“I do.”
After putting my shirt and jacket back on, I drove through the winding streets until I hit one I recognized. From there I made my way to the Sunset B and B. They had a VACANCY sign in the window. Yin might expect me to turn up here, but I doubted they’d be looking for Kripke.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“A place to hole up tonight. There’s probably a bus in the morning. Ride down to Sea-Tac and catch a flight home. Get a lawyer and tell the cops you came up here because you heard about the festival, but you got robbed. They’ll believe it. Just stick to your story.”
“On Christmas Eve? I’ll never catch a flight!”
“Then stay in Washaway. I don’t care. In the airport you’d have to eat overpriced food and wait around a really long time. I’m sure you’d rather be kidnapped again.”
“You’re right,” he said, and for the first time I heard a note of humility in his voice. “Of course you’re right. I … I just …”
“I don’t care,” I told him. “Get out.” He opened the door. “And Stuart? You’ll be hearing from me. Do I need to tell you not to mention our deal to anyone?”
“No, sir,” he said, which startled the hell out of me. He left the car and walked up the gravel path.
I did a quick U-turn and started back toward town. Did I have enough gas to keep driving around looking for Dolan?
A pickup started its engine and pulled up next to me. I was reaching for my ghost knife when I recognized the driver. It was Ford, Steve’s friend with the Wilford Brimley mustache who had gone to check on Little Mark’s head injury. “By God, it’s about time!” he said. His voice was deep and clear like a country-music singer’s.
“What’s going on?”
“Chief asked me to fetch you. He said there’s some dead Chinese millionaire fellas you need to identify. You want to follow me?”
That changed things. “Give me a minute.” I turned to Catherine. She was still staring at me with cow eyes. I couldn’t keep dragging her around with me. Ursula could have killed her, and Catherine would have sat there and let it happen. Not to mention what the sapphire dog would do to her.
But if Yin was dead, the Sunset would be safe for her again. “Go up to the room and get some sleep.” I gave her my key. I was going to say more, but she opened the door, shut it, and walked up the front path without asking for an explanation. She’d do whatever I asked without question. It was creepy.
Ford had his cellphone to his ear. He held up one fat finger without looking at me. Then he said, “Okay,” and switched it off. “Change of plans,” he said to me. “Follow behind.”
He backed up and did a three-point turn. I followed him around the block, past Hondo’s darkened garage to a street I hadn’t seen before. There was a shoe store, a gift shop, and what could only be the town hall Steve had mentioned. It was made of red brick, but the window ledges were marble, and at four stories, it towered over the other buildings on the block. Four round steps led up to a pair of unlikely stone columns and a single cramped door.
We parked in the adjoining lot. Ford waddled toward the back of the building and down concrete stairs to a basement door. We were going in the back entrance.
The room we entered had three more chairs and one more desk that it could comfortably hold. Papers were jumbled everywhere, and the corkboard on the wall was six deep with tattered flyers.
As Ford shut the door behind me, a heavy wooden door across the room opened. A black woman with Coke- bottle glasses came in. It was Sherisse again, who had gone with Ford to pick up Little Mark. She was younger than I’d first thought, and she trundled forward to give Ford a quick kiss on the lips. “Thank you for coming,” she said in a ragged, whispery voice.
“Of course, sugar kitten. What do you need?”
“I couldn’t get through to Steve,” she answered. “And I need him to know about this. Come on.” She looked at me. “You can come too, if you think you can be useful.”
