Mortal Sins (6 page)

“It’s gone now.”

“Right, but how do you fit that in?”

“With a crowbar and a whole lot of maybes.” She raked a hand through her hair. “If Meacham is the killer, then someone else wandering in the woods last night used death magic on Rule. That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. We don’t know how many people were involved in the ritual. Maybe Meacham had one or more confederates. But it doesn’t explain why ...”

“Why he or she didn’t kill Turner.”

Lily swallowed. “Yeah. I’m thinking maybe he or she couldn’t do it. Rule’s not easy to kill, and our second perp might not have had enough juice to do the job. If the death magic was shared between a bunch of ritualists, maybe . . .” She broke off, sighed. “That’s a lot of maybes.” She needed to talk to Cullen, dammit, about what was or wasn’t possible, but . . . she glanced at her watch. “Shit. I’m late.”

“You go, then, and I can go get me some eggs.”

Lily thanked him for the consult, put her phone away, tidied the take-out trash, and backed out of her spot in front of the school.

Religion. She hated the way it kept intruding on her cases. Not that she was opposed to religion, per se . . .
Oh, be honest,
she told herself. She had issues. Her father was Buddhist. Her mother was Christian. There’d been a discreet little war throughout her childhood on the subject. As a result, she was . . . well, not exactly prejudiced. Religion was fine for other people. She simply preferred not to think about it.

Lily pulled into the parking lot in back of the sheriff’s office. Karonski was probably right about most of what he’d said, but they did know one thing about souls. At least, Lily did. Souls existed. That was more than she’d known for the first twenty-eight years of her life, so she counted it as an important datum.

Especially since she’d had to die to obtain it. Lily climbed out of the plush car, shut and locked the door. And did her best not to remember.

SEVEN

IN
the fresh light of an early summer morning, something hovered on the wide front porch of the two-story house, waiting. It hung near the door, remembering walls and that doors need opening, but not how to manage the trick.

The man was inside the house. It knew that without having any idea how it knew, nor did it wonder at its knowledge. Questions, curiosity, thought . . . none endured long in the constant fracturing that was its reality.

Cold, cold. So cold. It knew how to gain warmth; dimly it remembered that lesson and the bliss, the sheer joy of heat. For a little while, it had thought it was fixed. Freed. For a little while, it had
remembered.

Something had gone wrong. What? It didn’t know, couldn’t hold on to the thought or what passed for memory, not with bits of itself breaking up, always breaking up, like ice chips fracturing under pressure. But it knew—without knowing why—that to be warm again, it would have to leave this house.

It didn’t want to go. The man was inside. The one who knew it. It wanted, needed, to wait here, wait for the man to come out the door. If it could be close to him again, maybe it would know . . .

It no longer remembered what was missing. What it needed to know.

The howl of anguish was silent, a shuddering despair too great for its shredded being. It quivered and lost track of doors and houses and whatever had held it in one place.

Deep in the darkness of its fractured self, it heard The Voice.

Maybe the calling had been there all along; maybe it was newly come. It only knew the loathing and fear and promise of The Voice.

The call would grow louder, until it could no longer resist. It had to escape. It had to get warm again. Once it was warm, it wouldn’t hear The Voice, and then it could remember . . . surely warmth would let it remember enough. Then it could find the man who knew it. Maybe it could ask the man . . . whatever it was it needed so badly to know.

Once it was warm again. Yes.

It skittered away from the house, searching. Resisting the need to return to The Voice. Warmth would protect it, provide for it—yes, it remembered that much: when it was warm enough, The Voice went away.

Once it was warm again, all would be well. Yes.

It glided down the street—lost, fragmented, starved. Picking up speed as it went. Warmths were everywhere, but at first it found only the small warmths. Some of those would let it in, but the small warmths weren’t enough. It remembered that. It needed more.

Come,
said The Voice.
Come, come, come . . .

No! Frantic now, it hunted. It had to find a warmth, the right kind of warmth, or return to The Voice. There were warmths nearby, large warmths in the houses it glided past, but they wouldn’t work. It needed . . .

Ah, there! A door, a door in that warmth! Not a physical door—it had forgotten physicality again, so didn’t note the distinction—but a door nonetheless. A way in.

Walls were barriers only when it noticed the physical. It slid through one now without being aware of the passage, focused on the warmth it tracked. It eased close, found the “door” it needed, and slipped through. And into the warmth.

The shock of heat, of
self
, was sweet beyond expression. Lost in the bliss of sensation—Arms, legs, skin! It had skin!—for some time it simply rode the physical without noticing the other things it had regained.

Memory, though not its own. And words.

Gun,
it thought in surprise, remembering now what a gun was. Then, tenderly sharing the discovery with its warmth, it added more words:
Gun, yes. We will get the gun and kill and kill.

EIGHT

AT
8:22 A.M. Lily walked back into Sheriff Deacon’s office.

“Agent Yu.” He didn’t get up and his expression didn’t tell her much, but he wasn’t thrilled to see her. He nodded at the other person in the room, who had stood when Lily entered. “This is Meacham’s attorney, Crystal Kessenblaum.”

The PD was a tall, thin woman, thirtyish or more, with an explosion of red hair that had rained freckles all over her skin. She wore white linen slacks with a long, slitted tunic in spring green—a pretty outfit, but an odd choice for the situation. It all but screamed, “Don’t think of me as a lawyer.” She also wore glasses, little round Ben Franklins, and not a speck of makeup. She had a crisp nod for Lily, but didn’t offer to shake hands.

So Lily did, extending one hand confidently. “Ms. Kessenblaum. I’m glad you could make it here so early.”

Kessenblaum’s nearly invisible eyebrows shot up. She stared at Lily’s hand a second, then seemed to decide what the hell and took it. Her tone was belligerent. “Checking me out?”

She had a decent grip, damp palms, and a little lick of magic. Fire magic, mostly—one of the more common Gifts, and one that was relatively kind to its possessor. Most of those with a slight dose of Fire learned to control it fairly easily. A few never even knew it was there.

“Of course. I gather the sheriff told you I’m a sensitive?”

Kessenblaum shot the sheriff an aggravated glance. Maybe there was some history between the two of them; maybe Kessenblaum was always aggravated, annoyed, or otherwise aggrieved. “Yes, and I want to go on record that nothing you learn about my client through touch is admissible.”

Why did everyone feel obliged to point that out? “So noted. Sheriff, have you heard from the DA?”

“Yeah, yeah. Twice. First time to say she was meeting you here. Second time to say she was running late. Her youngest came down with a stomach bug. Mark usually takes the kids to day care, but he’s got the heaves, too, so she had to drop ’em off on her way here.”

“How many children does she have?” Lily was newly interested in such things, in how women balanced careers and kids. Not that finding someone to pitch in when she and Rule had to be away would be a problem, not with his father right there at Clanhome and about a hundred other potential sitters standing by. Lupi were kind of communal about child care.

Not that she knew exactly what her place was in Toby’s life. She wasn’t a stepmom, wasn’t sure she wanted to be one, but . . . but something ached inside her at the thought. Something she didn’t understand.

“Three—two girls and a boy.” Deacon shoved his chair back and stood. “We might as well head on down. Marcia will meet us there.”

Kessenblaum headed out the door without another word. Lily started to follow. The sheriff’s hand on her arm stopped her. “Listen, Agent Yu, I, uh . . .” He grimaced. “I had it coming. That’s all I want to say.”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Good enough.”

THE
jail occupied the basement and most of the first floor. Deacon took them to the admissions area, where he gave instructions for Meacham to be brought to a small interview room. He’d just finished when Marcia Farquhar arrived, slightly breathless. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“No problem,” Lily said, holding out her hand. “The sheriff explained.”

The DA looked like a mother. Not Lily’s mother, heaven knows—Marcia Farquhar was plump and pink, with a drawl like raw honey—but someone’s. Her hair was prematurely silver, worn long and pulled back in an old-fashioned bun from a soft, round face. She wore a good suit, dusky rose, with a crisp white shirt. Her handshake was brisk and business-like.

No magic in Marcia Farquhar.

“You’re messing with my case, Agent Yu.”

Lily nodded. “You had every reason to believe this one was solid. Turns out it isn’t. The arraignment’s this afternoon, I understand. I’d like to discuss that, if you have a few minutes after the interview with Meacham. You delayed the arraignment the maximum allowed.”

“We lacked bodies—which you have now provided, along with some complications. But that won’t affect the arraignment.”

It damned sure ought to. “We’ll talk,” Lily repeated.

Kessenblaum’s eyes had been darting between the two of them. “You have information that affects my client, Agent Yu?”

“Nothing admissible.” Lily took petty satisfaction in saying that.

“If you’re planning to bring additional charges against Mr. Meacham—”

“I don’t bring charges. I conduct investigations. Your client is a witness in an investigation into the use of magic in a multiple homicide.”

“You won’t learn anything here. Mr. Meacham is not competent to answer questions.”

“He’s competent enough to insist on your presence at all interviews.”

“I’m glad he remembered to do that, but it doesn’t indicate competency. More that he knows who to trust and who not to trust. He ought to be in a medical facility, not jail.” The look she shot Marcia Farquhar sizzled with some prior argument.

“Crystal,” Farquhar said in her honey-soft drawl, “you aren’t going to do your client much good if you take everything so personally. Right now, you ought to be cozying up to Agent Yu, here. She’s your new best friend, seein’ that whatever screws up my case helps you.”

Oh, yeah, plenty of history between these two. Normally a DA didn’t give a wobbly young PD advice—not good advice, anyway. Lily wanted to know what the deal was with these two, but not now. She looked at Deacon. “Where’s that interview room?”

The jail wasn’t much different from a dozen others Lily had seen. Newer than some, which meant it ought to seem cleaner, but it didn’t. The usual tang of disinfectant hovered over other scents, nothing her human nose could decipher precisely. Nothing pleasant, though. She was glad she lacked Rule’s sense of smell, and even gladder she was wholly numb to whatever psychic effluvia clung to the place. How could even a blocked empath stand working directly over it?

Must be a damned good block, she decided.

The interview room was beige all over. It held one table, two chairs, two guards, and a man in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs, and no shoes.

Lily knew from the file that Roy Don Meacham was five-six, one seventy, Caucasian, brown and brown, and had turned thirty-nine last December. The brown hair was thinning, the brown irises were surrounded by pink whites, and the 170 pounds was mostly muscle and mostly in the upper half of his body. His shoulders were disproportionately wide, his torso long and husky, his hips skinny, and his legs short.

He looked like a balding gorilla with really bad allergies.

The DA hadn’t come in with them, electing to watch from behind the one-way mirror on the wall to the right of the door. Deacon had. He claimed that Meacham was unstable, subject to fits of violence, and he wasn’t taking any chances. With two young, brawny guards—one Hispanic, the other as dark an African American as Lily had ever seen—the sheriff’s caution seemed overdone, but understandable. It would be embarrassing as hell if a prisoner in his charge hurt a fed.

Kessenblaum amazed Lily by speaking gently. “Hey, Roy Don. They treating you okay?”

“Hey.” Meacham’s gaze jumped around before settling on Kessenblaum. He had a deep voice, appropriate for the barrel-shaped chest. It reminded her of Rule’s father, Isen. “What the hell is it now? You finally convince these assholes to let me go home? I hope you brought me some cigarettes this time. A man needs a goddamned smoke in this place.”

What he said was normal. The way he said it wasn’t. The words skittered into each other abruptly or dragged in odd places, as if he’d forgotten the normal rhythms of human speech.

Kessenblaum shook her head. “Not getting out today, I’m afraid. This is Agent Yu of the FBI. She wants to talk to you.”

The pink-and-brown eyes lighted on Lily, blinking fast, as if sending secret semaphores of distress. “FBI. Crap. I don’t want to talk to no FBI . . . Why you here? You’re too damned little. Don’t look like no FBI agent.”

Lily moved forward. “Are your eyes bothering you, Mr. Meacham?”

“My eyes?” He seemed puzzled. “You oughta arrest these assholes for locking me up. Got no reason. I need to go home. Becky’s bound to be worried about me, gone so long.” He frowned, still blinking. “How long I been gone, anyway?”

“Four days.” Lily pulled out the only other chair in the room and sat across the table from Meacham. He’d been hand-cuffed with his hands in front, as she’d asked. Those hands rested on the table, the fingers restlessly twining and untwining. “Seems longer, I bet.”

“Longer. Yeah.” Blink, blink, blink. “Becky’s good with the kids, but they need a man around. Got to get home, take care of them.”

He’d been told. More than once, he’d been told that his wife and children were dead, that he was under arrest for killing them. Lily didn’t think he was acting, though. People talk about the power of belief, but disbelief has power, too. Meacham wasn’t the first killer she’d seen wrecked by what he’d done, clinging to denial like a drowning man clings to a flimsy branch.

“Guess you’d like to have those taken off, huh?” She nodded at his hands, still busily wrapping and unwrapping themselves.

“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” He didn’t look down.

“Your handcuffs.”

He stopped blinking. “Those ain’t mine.”

“I guess they belong to the sheriff’s department, but they’re on your hands.” She tried a smile as she reached for one busy, busy hand. Her fingertips brushed one knuckle. “Mr. Meacham—”

“Not my hands!”
he bellowed. And with that, he exploded.

The table shot up, propelled by Meacham’s joined hands slamming it from underneath. He was roaring, on his feet, his face red and the cords in his neck standing out. Lily dived out of her chair, but wasn’t quite quick enough. The table clipped her hip as she went down. Kessenblaum was screaming, a high, staccato counterpoint to Meacham’s bass roar.

Lily scrambled to her feet. Both guards had jumped on Meacham, who bent, sending the Hispanic guard flying over his head to collide with the upturned table. The table blocked Lily, so she skidded around it and missed seeing the blow that crumpled the second guard, his hands clutching his crotch.

Deacon shot past her—going low, she realized, adjusting her own target.

The sheriff hit his prisoner at the knees, taking him down. Lily landed on Meacham’s chest just as the man hit the floor. She leaned one forearm across his throat, ready to choke him as needed.

As abruptly as it had begun, the fight was over.

In the renewed quiet, Lily heard Kessenblaum panting, whispery little moans interspersed with the occasional “oh-mygod.” The guard who’d been kicked in the nuts was cursing steadily, but without much breath.

Deacon shifted to sit on Meacham’s thighs while gripping the man’s wrists. He spoke calmly enough. “Anyone need a doctor?” When no one spoke, he said, “In that case, Corporal Sanchez, get your ass over here and take control of your prisoner.”

“Yes, sir.” Sanchez finished untangling himself from the table’s legs just as the door swung open and two more guards entered, weapons drawn. “Holster ’em, boys,” Deacon said without looking over. “Matheson, stand by. Hemmings, you and Sanchez secure the prisoner for return to his cell.”

Sanchez limped over to them. “Miss—uh, I mean Agent Yu, I’ll take him now.”

“In a minute.” She knew the man was deeply embarrassed. Bad enough to have a fed immobilizing his prisoner when he’d failed to control the man. Worse when that fed was female, five-two, and slim.

Tough. She looked down at the contorted face of the man who’d tried to take the room apart a moment ago. Meacham’s cheeks were wet, his red eyes streaming. “You injured, Mr. Meacham?”

He looked up at her, blinking madly. “Got no hands,” he whispered. “Not mine. They aren’t mine.”

She shifted so she could lay one hand along his wet, stubbled cheek without losing the ability to choke him if she needed to. She had to be sure . . . Oh, yes. Her touch confirmed the fleeting impression she’d received in the second between touching his hand and his going berserk.

Death magic, very faint, but unmistakable in its ground-glass foulness . . . and nothing else. Roy Don Meacham had not a shred of personal magic. Nothing he could have used to call up the death magic that still clung to his skin.

“That’s right, Mr. Meacham,” she agreed, hoarse and quiet. “Not your hands. It wasn’t your hands that did it.”