The coroner’s personnel loaded the body into the body bag and onto the stretcher, then dutifully carted him off to the morgue.
“All right, chick,” Jill said. “I’m done with my part, and I’ve seen you too much today. I’m gonna hit the road.”
“Love you too, bitch,” I replied, smiling.
She grinned and headed to her van. I helped the officer take the tape down, then made my way to the other side of the building where I’d left my car.
A chill wind hit me as I turned the corner, briefly robbing me of breath in shock at the abrupt change in temperature. It was a mild day, but that blast of air felt practically arctic. It faded as soon as it hit me, leaving behind an eerie calm that sent the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. That feels like the wind from a summoning. The thought snaked through my head even as a whisper of arcane brushed past me.
I turned slowly, completely unnerved. I sure as hell didn’t see any summoning diagrams chalked out on the sidewalk. Maybe it was something else? Had to be. Perhaps another portal like the one in my aunt’s library?
A nauseating ripple of menace passed through me and I edged toward the building, instinctively wanting something solid and real at my back. I shifted into othersight, scanning the area and the sky above me. There was nothing physical that I could see, but there was an odd cast to the surroundings, like a slow coiling of power—rapidly producing the effect of scaring the ever-living shit out of me. This was something that wanted me, and not in a nice way. I knew that viscerally.
Stucco dug into my back as I pressed against the building. I could feel my pulse speeding as the odd coil of potency seemed to tighten and coalesce in front of me. Shit. Is someone controlling this? There was no one in sight. And what the hell was it anyway? I still couldn’t see anything tangible.
Stop panicking and start doing something! I railed at myself. Pressed up against the building like this, I was an easy target for whatever was happening. Plus, I was pretty much powerless. Too bad I don’t have a portable version of the storage diagram. I felt a lovely little ping at the thought, but I pushed it aside. Now wasn’t the time to figure out how to accomplish something like that. If it was even possible.
I shoved off the wall and took off at a dead run for my car. I had no idea if I’d be any safer there, but visions raced through my head of other arcane dangers I’d faced, and the sanctuary of steel and plastic was better than nothing at all. I could sense the malevolence swirl behind me, as if snapping at my heels.
I heard the distant screech of tires on pavement and the thrum of an engine, and the thought flashed through my head that I might escape this unknown thing chasing me only to get hit by a car. But I also had the unshakeable sense that getting hit by a car would hurt less.
I heard a squeal of brakes, and suddenly a car slammed to a stop a few feet in front of me. The driver threw the passenger door open. “Get in!” he shouted unnecessarily as I practically dove into the car from sheer momentum. The instant I was mostly in, the driver slammed his foot down on the gas, and I had to yank my trailing foot quickly inside as the acceleration closed the car door.
I took a heaving gasp of relief, terror shifting to amazement that I’d somehow escaped the thing chasing me. Then I looked up and processed who my rescuer was.
Cory Crawford glanced first at me, then in the rearview mirror, lips pressed together in a thin line beneath his mustache. “You okay?” he asked, words clipped.
I gulped and straightened in the seat, then fumbled for the seat belt. “Yeah.” I busied myself with the belt while I racked my brain for some way to explain why the hell I’d been pelting across the parking lot.
But he’d somehow known that I needed a rescue.
“Did you see something behind me?” I blurted.
Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. “Not ... exactly.” He slid a look toward me. “I was coming back to see if you wanted to go conduct that search warrant and I saw you running ...” He paused, skepticism and self-doubt warring in his face. “I ... I didn’t see anything behind you.” For an instant I thought he was going to add, but I knew something was chasing you. But he’d clamped down on whatever else he might have been tempted to say.
A tense and awkward silence descended upon the car as I resisted the urge to hug my knees to my chest. I glanced back once, using othersight to scan the road behind us, but I couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary.
Crawford slowed and then pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store. He parked, but left the car running. He kept his gaze straight ahead and his hands on the steering wheel. “Just give me some line of bullshit here, okay?” he said, voice tight and tense. “I’m not ready to hear anything else.” Remorse shadowed his face, tinged with the barest trace of fear.
My chest tightened, a weary pity mingling with a nebulous sense of frustration. I wanted him to know, I realized. I wanted to stop having to lie to him and hold details back. But I also knew that forcing the truth onto him would make it all blow up in my face. Crawford had turned into an unexpected ally in the past few months, and I couldn’t afford to lose that.
“It was a big dog,” I heard myself saying, flat and expressionless. “Rottweiler, I think. I was trying to get to my car so that I wouldn’t have to shoot it.”
Some of the tension left his shoulders. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I thought too.” He looked briefly disappointed, and I had the feeling it was directed at both of us. Silence fell for another moment, then he took a deep breath and turned to me with a tight, almost desperate smile. “Well, do you still want to do this search warrant?” he asked. “Or do you want to go see if ... if the dog is still there?” I could almost see the thoughts whirling behind his eyes, praying that we could move on and forget that this strange and unexplainable moment had ever happened.
“You can take me back to my car,” I said, fighting to keep from sounding anything other than normal and settled. If I still felt that odd sense of danger I’d tell him to clear out, and fuck the idea of shielding him from the truth. “And if everything’s okay, then we can head over to do the search warrant.” I needed to do the search anyway, and it would get my mind off what had just happened. Besides, that piece of paper with the initials had raised a number of questions.
“Sounds like a plan,” he replied with a firm nod.
We returned to the City Towers building and cruised slowly through the parking lot. I had my senses extended as far as my little skills could manage, but there was no trace of the strange malevolence as far I could tell.
He pulled up right next to my car. “Vic lived in a condo near the lake—Emerald Heights. Unit number forty-three. I’ll follow you over.”
“Thanks, Cory,” I said, meeting his eyes.
The smile he gave me in return was sad, and this time there was no doubt that he felt he was failing me. But I had no idea what I could say to reassure him that wouldn’t make things worse.
I didn’t linger in the parking lot and made tracks out of there as quickly as possible. I couldn’t sense that strange menacing presence, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.
It’s not there anymore. So does that it mean it’s gone, or did it merely relocate?
Either way I wanted to get the hell out of there.
The search of Vic Kerry’s condo ended up being quite anticlimactic and mostly fruitless other than the picture it painted of a man living a mostly solitary existence. He had hundreds of books in damn near every genre, and enough DVDs to open his own rental store. But it was clear that he wanted far more out of his life, as evidenced by the number of brochures on the kitchen table for cars, houses, and vacation destinations. One room of the condo was fully occupied with exercise equipment similar to what was in his office, and I had to wonder if he’d thrown himself so thoroughly into fitness and working out more from a desperate need for a social outlet than from a desire to live longer.
There was also nothing work-related as far as we could see. After about forty-five minutes of digging through drawers and closets, we called it quits and left. An oddly morose fatigue dragged at me as we returned to our cars.
“Be careful out there,” Crawford said as I opened my car door. I looked over at him to see that there was very real worry in his eyes.
I gave him as reassuring a smile as I could create. “Thanks. It’s all good.”
He dipped his head in a brief nod, then took a deep breath. “Look, Kara, I think you should know ... there’s a lot of chatter among the rank about the task force.”
The frisson of worry returned. “What kind of chatter? They want to take me off it?”
He gave a shrug, which didn’t exactly alleviate my unease. “It’s mostly stupid gossip.” He slid an apologetic look toward me, which told me what most of the gossip probably entailed. I was growing used to the fairly open speculation that I was banging Ryan. Pretty damn funny, considering the truth.
“I know the chief’s a supporter of you being on it, though,” he continued. “And he’s the one who really matters.”
I nodded, but the simmering worry remained. The chief wasn’t going to risk his job so that I could play around with the feds.
He grimaced. “I wasn’t trying to upset you. I just thought you might want to know what’s being said.”
“I do,” I said. “Thanks. Knowledge is power, right?”
He hesitated then gave me a weak smile. “Yeah. I guess it is.” He licked his lips—a completely uncharacteristic gesture for him. “Watch out for those dogs, okay?” He tried to chuckle, but it fell flat. He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. “You should tell Agent Kristoff ...” He trailed off and I felt another wave of sympathy for him.
“I’ll be careful,” I said quietly. “Thanks for worrying.”
He turned and climbed into his car without another word. I ducked into mine and watched him depart. One thing was for sure—I wasn’t going to be telling Agent Kristoff anything, at least not for a while. Ryan would freak, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with that right now.
