“You ready?” Viktor held up his keys. We were headed to interview the second victim’s mother. Samantha Trifor was waiting for us at her job.
I nodded. “Yeah, let’s head out. At least we’ve got some questions to lead with,” I said as we headed toward his truck. “I just hate sitting there, putting the parents through this.”
“The more we learn, the more we can spare more parents the same pain. And we might be able to find Eleanor. If she’s with the same unsub, then there’s a good chance she’s got at least a few more days to live.” He fit the key into the ignition and eased out of the parking garage.
“Why do you think the woman takes them?” I asked, staring out the window.
I was still feeling the effects of the ride into the park. The longing had stayed with me, the feeling of being displaced. I hadn’t told Herne, mostly because I didn’t want him to worry, but all I could think of was that my Autumn’s Bane side was bleeding through.
“I don’t know,” Viktor said. “Why does anybody do anything? It fills a need they have, however twisted that desire is. For some reason, this woman—if it’s the same woman we saw nab Eleanor on the film—can only fill that vacuum inside by stealing children.”
“And then she kills them,” I added softly. “Don’t forget the other side of the equation.”
“I never do,” Victor said, turning on to the main drag. Traffic was light. It was nine-thirty and the business sector was in full swing with everybody at work.
We reached the school where Samantha Trifor taught third grade. She was a single mother, and her daughter had been second to vanish. Samantha was waiting for us in a conference room, looking nervous.
“Have you found her killer yet? Have you found the person who killed my little girl?” The hope in her eyes was palpable.
“I’m sorry, no, not yet. We need to ask you a few questions, because a fourth girl has been abducted and we’re in a race against time.” I paused as her crestfallen expression revealed more than any words ever could.
“I’ll do what I can. No other parent should have to go through this.” She hung her head for a moment, then finally looked up at us. “How can I help?”
“I’m going to ask you a couple of questions that might be personal in nature. Please understand we’re just trying to gather as much information as possible.”
She nodded.
“All right,” I continued. “First, it says in the report you were at the mall when Nexie vanished?” I glanced at my notes, making sure to get the right ones. Nothing made a victim feel like you didn’t value them more than getting their name wrong. Or the name of their child.
“Right. It was August 22. I took Nexie to the mall to see the petting zoo.” Samantha met my eyes. “You know that already, though.”
“Yes, but we want to make sure we have our facts straight. Can you tell us what happened when she vanished? What was she doing? What were you doing?”
“I was standing there, watching her interact with the ducks inside the zoo—it was ringed off with a metal fence. I thought I heard someone calling my name and I swear that I recognized the voice. I glanced over to where I thought it was coming from. There was nobody there, so I took a quick look around. Nexie was safe inside the fence. When I couldn’t find anybody, I decided whoever it was had been calling someone else. I turned back to the petting zoo, but Nexie was gone.”
“How long were you looking for the person who called you?”
Samantha thought for a moment. “Maybe two minutes? Maybe three? It wasn’t more than that, though.”
“What did you do when you realized Nexie was gone?”
“I thought maybe she had wandered over to see the sheep, so I moved over to that side of the zoo, but she wasn’t there. At that point, I started to get worried. I began calling for her, but she wasn’t there, so I ran inside the pen. I was hoping she had just wandered out of sight—there were a lot of people there with their kids. But I couldn’t find her. The mall went on lockdown, but it was too late. Whoever kidnapped Nexie was gone.”
“You said you recognized the voice who called you?”
“I thought I did, though I couldn’t pinpoint who I thought it was. I don’t know, everything just became a blur at that point.” She shook her head, a bewildered look on her face. “They took her on the 22nd of August. On the 28th, a man was walking his dog along one of the shoreline parks and found…”
“He found her?”
Nodding, she choked up. “In a coffin. Why would they do that to my baby? Why would anybody kill her? She was so little. She never hurt anybody.”
“I don’t know,” I murmured, reaching out to place my hand on hers. “We’re trying to find out.” And right then, I realized it was true—we weren’t just on the hunt for Eleanor’s abductor. We were hunting for justice for the other victims.
“I have a difficult question to ask you, but I need you to trust me that it’s important.” I waited for her to look at me. “Are you an alcoholic? Do you ever go to AlkaNon meetings?”
One beat. Two beats. Then, finally, Samantha nodded.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ve been sober for a year. AlkaNon is my saving grace. Without them, I’d have lost my baby years ago.”
“Please, tell us about it. I promise you, we need this information.”
She paused for a moment. “I was divorced right after Nexie was born. My ex couldn’t handle being a parent and he didn’t want anything to do with Nexie or me. He cut and ran. I served papers, but they couldn’t find him. I started to drink and realized I couldn’t stop. My mother intervened and dragged me to the AlkaNon meetings—she’s also an alcoholic. She reminded me that Nexie was all I had and that if I kept up the drinking, I’d lose her. That scared me, so I started going out of fear. Now, I go out of love.”
I asked for her regular meeting place and then asked, “Has anybody at your meetings ever showed an overt interest in your life—I mean, during the month before Nexie vanished? Did anybody seem too interested in your home life and daughter?”
Samantha stared at me for a moment. “You mean that someone there could have taken her?”
“We don’t know. We’re just gathering information.” I hoped to hell she wouldn’t go off on the group. We needed her to be discreet. “Listen to me. You can’t talk about this to anybody. The more information we gather, the better we can assess who’s doing this. But we need it to stay quiet because we don’t want to scare away whoever’s killing these little girls. Do you understand?”
After a pause that felt entirely too long, Samantha nodded. “Yeah. Actually, I do understand. I used to work for the Department of Children’s Services, and we investigated abuse claims. We had to be cautious so that if we found abuse, we didn’t muddy our case. And we had to make sure we had the right suspect. After a while, I couldn’t take the parade of abuse—it ate at my heart, so I went back to school and got my teaching certificate. I wanted to make a difference in the children’s lives in a more positive manner that didn’t leave me drained.”
“Then you get it—why neither you nor our agency can go off half-cocked.”
She nodded. “Yes. And there was a woman at the meetings for a while who seemed odd to me. She was constantly asking how Nexie was, even though she had never met her. I was uncomfortable around her and did my best to avoid her. Do you think she…”
“We can’t answer that. But the more you tell us, the better. Can you tell us what she looked like? If we send a sketch artist to you, can you work with them?” The Wild Hunt had a sketch artist they occasionally employed.
“I can. She was blond, short—about five-two. Very thin. I remember thinking she looked like she’d had a hard life. Weathered, if you know what I mean. She was there because she had been an addict—addicted to crackalaine. Oh, and she was a shifter.”
Bingo. I jotted down what she said. “Do you remember her name?”
“Only her first name—we never give last names in the group. She told me her name was Naomi. She never told me much about her own life, though, even though she was prying into mine. But she stopped coming to the group…sometime…shortly before they found my daughter’s body.” Samantha squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh good gods help me. Was I talking to Nexie’s killer?” She leaned her head on her arms on the table and began to cry.
I glanced over at Viktor, who looked both uncomfortable and incredibly sad. I leaned over and rubbed Samantha’s shoulder.
“Just breathe. We don’t know for sure, so please, just breathe and rest. We’ll be in touch as soon as we know more, and I’ll arrange for a sketch artist to come over today, if you have time.”
After a moment, Samantha raised her head and wiped her eyes on a tissue. “I’m going home, so send him there. I took this afternoon off because I needed to wait for the cable guy anyway.” She paused, then softly added, “Find her. Find the woman who killed my Nexie, and those other babies. Find her before she kills the little girl she has now. Please.”
“We’re doing our best,” I said, slowly standing. “Do you want me to call someone to be with you?”
Samantha shook her head. “No. I promised myself I wouldn’t drink today, and I keep my promises. Every day, I wake up and promise myself that I won’t drink for just one day. That’s how I make it through.”
As Viktor and I headed out, I glanced at him. “We need to find that bitch and fast.”
“I agree,” he said. “And I hope she puts up a fight so we have an excuse to take her out.”
On the way back to the office, I asked Viktor if we could stop by my bank so I could make a deposit and take out some cash. “I won’t have time after work, given I have to go home and get ready for my session with Marilee tonight.”
“No problem. Where to?”
“We’re near the main branch—the ASCU.” The Associated Shifters Credit Union wasn’t just for shifters, and they offered the best rates on car and house loans. I had been going to them for years because I didn’t like dealing with the Fae, and I wasn’t inclined to bank with the vampires, either.
Viktor parked across the street in the parking garage. “Change a twenty for me? I need fives.” He handed me a twenty-dollar bill.
“Sure thing. I’ll be back in a few.” I slipped out of my car and headed across the street, waiting till there was a lull in traffic so I could dash across. I crossed between a black sedan that was parked in front of the credit union with its motor running and an SUV. The credit union took up the bottom two stories of an office building that also housed a gym and several apartments.
As I jogged up the front steps, stopping at the double glass doors, a crow suddenly swept down to circle around me. I paused, turning around to watch as it flew away, my back to the entrance. The crow shrieked at me, and the next second, there was a sudden change in pressure as a great roar blasted past me. My ears felt like someone had jabbed ice picks in them and I couldn’t hear.
A split second later, I felt an eerie calm descend, and everything seemed to move in slow motion. A shower of glass blew past me and I felt some of the shards lodge in my back. And then, the blast picked me up to carry me with it.
I’m flying, I thought, feeling oddly calm as I sailed over the stairs, toward the road past the sidewalk. I was gliding on the wind, sailing with my arms spread out like wings. As the pavement rose to meet me, I suddenly realized that I was going to land hard on the asphalt. I caught a quick glimpse of Viktor racing across the street toward me, and then, time speeded up again and I hit the road, hard, skidding along it till I came to a stop as the black sedan pulled out and rolled down the street.
I still couldn’t hear, and I could barely breathe—the landing had knocked my breath away. As I lay there, the pain in my back increased and I saw blood begin to trickle down my arms, pooling on the ground below me.
I tried to move, but Viktor was kneeling by me. He was trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear him. I stared up at him, unable to comprehend what had just happened. He had pulled out his phone and was talking frantically on it, while he held me down with one hand so I couldn’t move. I began to feel queasy, and my head was spinning. I tried to tell him how I felt, but I couldn’t hear what I was saying, and panicked, I began to hyperventilate.
Viktor leaned down, staring into my face. He formed his words carefully as I watched his lips. “Breathe slowly. Take a slow breath and let it out gently. The medics are coming.”
I nodded, trying to control my breathing. The pain in my back was increasing at a rapid rate. I grimaced, trying to shift so that I was more comfortable. Viktor was on the phone again and I couldn’t tell who he was calling. My ears were ringing now, which was somewhat comforting. At least I could hear something.
A moment later, flashing lights filled the street as a parade of police cruisers, medics, and ambulances crowded into the area. As people raced by, a team of paramedics stopped beside me, kneeling. Viktor was talking to them, and they felt for my pulse. I was wondering why they didn’t roll me onto my back, but then they gently rolled me up on one side to slide a back board beneath me, then laid me back down on my stomach. The next thing I knew, they were lifting me up and carrying me to an ambulance. Viktor leaned down to where I could see his face again.
“I’ll be driving right behind you. I’ll be at the hospital,” he mouthed.
I nodded that I understood, and then closed my eyes, not wanting to think about what might be wrong with me. All the way to the hospital, all I could think about was the crow, and how it had probably saved my life.
At the hospital, they took me right into the emergency room. The doctor was cutting my jacket, my shirt, and my jeans off me. I was beginning to feel faint. A nurse hooked up an IV and I saw blood trickling into my arm. Another moment and she had plugged yet another IV into my other arm.
The doctor leaned down and, like Viktor, began to speak to me. “Can you understand me?”
He was speaking clearly, and I could see the words form on his lips. I nodded.
“Your back is riddled with shards of glass. We’re going to remove them now. I’ve given you pain medication in the IV. Then we’ll have to check you for broken bones. Stay as still as you can,” he said, then vanished around the table.
I could feel the tug as he removed each piece of glass, and started counting, trying to keep my mind off what was happening. By the time I got to fifty-eight, I decided to stop. More time passed and then I felt the sting of antiseptic as they began to doctor the wounds. As the minutes ticked by, I suddenly realized I could hear faint sounds, then they became louder.
Another five minutes and I could faintly hear the doctor speaking.
“She’s damned lucky. If she had been facing the door, the glass could have punctured her heart and other organs. As it is, she’s going to feel like a pincushion.”
“Yes, Doctor,” the nurse said.
“I can hear you,” I spoke up, my voice raspy and harsh.
The doctor peeked around at me. “Good, that means you probably didn’t sustain permanent damage to your ears. We’re going to turn you over and check you for broken bones now. It’s going to hurt, even with the pain meds, but we need to make sure you didn’t bust anything up with that swan dive.”
“Trust me, it wasn’t intentional.” I blinked as they carefully shifted me over to my back. He was right—it hurt, but I bit my lip and didn’t say a word.
“First, since you can hear me now, does anything feel like it’s hurt?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think there’s anything broken, though my stomach hurts.”
They peeled what remained of my clothes off me and began a thorough examination. My stomach hurt, and even my boobs hurt, because while I had managed the landing without busting a single bone, apparently I had a lot of scraped skin from body surfing the pavement. As the doctor helped me sit up, I grimaced.
“Yeowch, those cuts hurt.”
“They’re bound to. Somehow, you managed to survive fairly intact. A few of the cuts required a stitch or two, but they’re self-dissolving and you should be healed up in a week or so. You’re going to have some scars on your back,” he warned.
“Hey, at least I have my life and my limbs.” I paused, shaking my head. “How are my ears?”
He peered into them, then checked my eyes. “No concussion, but I’m going to bet you have a nasty headache for the next few days. You probably need a good chiropractic adjustment, and at the first sign of anything else seeming wrong, get yourself back here. There’s always the chance we’re going to miss something.”
“Can I go home?” I really didn’t want to be stuck in the hospital for long.
“I’m afraid we need to let you go. While I’d like to keep you overnight, the fact is that we’ve got multiple victims coming in from the explosion and we’re going to need every room we have.” He paused, then gazed in my eyes. “You’re lucky, Ember. You’re very lucky. If you had arrived at the bank five minutes earlier, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking.”
I read between the lines. “How many?”
“We don’t know, but the credit union was busy this morning, and then there were all the employees there. And the explosion brought down part of the building so the apartments and gym above it were impacted, too. I’m going to discharge you now, because I’ve got a long day ahead, and multiple victims are waiting. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t as lucky as you are.”
“Go on, help them. I’m all right.” I waited till he signed off on my chart and headed out the door.
The nurse turned to me. “I’m afraid your clothes are ruined. You’ll have to wear the hospital gown. Your boyfriend is waiting for you, along with your friend who followed you in.”
“Do you have a robe I can put over this?” I asked.
She brought out a thin robe and at least between it and the hospital gown, my butt and boobs were covered.
“It’s not pretty, but it will keep you covered. Here are your prescriptions for pain meds, and an antibiotic to prevent infection. They’re geared toward Fae physiology so they won’t conflict with your makeup.” She paused, then touched my arm. “The doctor’s right, you’re a lucky young woman. We’ve seen ten dead come through already, and the injured are piling up. A lot of traumatic burn cases. Whoever did this, they were out to kill.”
I stared at her for a moment, my heart sinking. I knew precisely who had done this. As she wheeled me out to the waiting room, I saw Herne pacing the floor. The room was overflowing, and there were several security guards milling through the crowd.
Herne rushed over when he saw me, Viktor on his heels.
“Ember, oh my love.” Herne started to hug me but I held up my hand.
“No touching me right now. My back is a minefield of cuts from the glass in the door.”
Viktor nodded. “I saw just how many shards were poking out of you. If you’d been human, you would have died from that blast.”
The nurse signed off with the receptionist, who handed me my discharge papers. She had a peculiar look on her face, but I didn’t want to ask what was wrong. As we headed out the door, though, one of the men in the waiting room turned a cold eye on me.
“You—your kind did this. You’re the reason my wife is fighting for her life!” He started toward me, but one of the guards intervened, taking him by the shoulders and moving him back, talking softly to him.
Tears welled in my eyes. I had managed not to cry over the pain, but I was feeling on edge and in pain and right now, that was the last thing I wanted to hear.
“Come on,” Herne said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Once we were at his SUV, Herne insisted on lifting me in instead of letting me climb in myself. I locked my door and tried not to lean back against my cuts while still fastening my seat belt. Herne slammed the door and then dashed around to the driver’s side. We were on the way before he’d even fully closed his door.
As we threaded our way out of the parking lot, I watched the ambulances that were still arriving, sirens screaming. They were lining up, five deep at one point, and I watched the medics wheeling gurney after gurney into the hospital.
“The Tuathan Brotherhood?” I turned to Herne.
He gave me a terse nod. “I’m afraid so. We’re on the precipice of a really bad scene, Ember. I’m in close communication with the cops right now. So far, there are at least twenty dead, and more than forty injured so far, a number of them critically.”
“All shifters and humans?”
“Mostly. A few Fae, but mostly shifters and humans, yes. And the TB hacked into one of the local news channels to claim responsibility on the air. They wore masks, so we couldn’t see their faces,” he said bleakly. “We have to get a handle on this before people start to retaliate.”
“I think that horse already left the barn. Did you see the look on that man’s face in the waiting room? If the security guard hadn’t been there, he would have attacked me. What the fuck is this brotherhood? We need to talk to Saílle and Névé. No more pussyfooting around.”
“You are going straight home and going to bed,” Herne said.
“Oh hell no, I’m not. I’m in pain, yes, but lying down isn’t going to do anything for me. I’m coming into the office. Besides, Viktor and I may have caught a break in Eleanor’s case.” I told him about the woman Samantha had told us about. “I’m pretty sure that she’s getting to the families via AlkaNon meetings. And if she is a crackalaine addict, and she’s killing the girls with crackalaine, there has to be something about that angle.”
“I hate to admit it, but you’re right. And we can use all hands on deck. But if you need to rest, you take a nap on the daybed in my office, you hear me?” He flashed me a stern look, and I nodded.
“Deal. Come on, let’s get back to the agency. We’ve got a lot of damage control to do.” I stared out the window all the way back to the Wild Hunt, wondering where the Tuathan Brotherhood would strike next.
By the time we arrived, Angel was in tears. When she saw me, she rushed over and threw her arms around me, which of course, brought an instant reaction from me.
“Mother of pearl! That hurts!” I pulled away, groaning.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling back. “I’m sorry!”
Feeling instantly contrite, I shook my head. “No, it’s just that my back feels like some sadist took a knife to me. Trust me, I’m glad to see you too.” I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m just sore as hell and the pain meds are wearing off. Can you get my prescriptions filled for me?” I started to hand her the scrips, but Herne grabbed them.
“I’ll run down to Urgent Care on the first floor and take care of these. They have an in-house pharmacy. Angel, help Ember into the break room. We’ll meet when I get back. Order in food. I’m pretty sure we all need something to eat by now. No pizza, though—we’ve had entirely too much the past few days, thanks to you girls. Something else. Fish and chips or tacos or whatever.” He headed back toward the elevator.
Angel helped me into the break room and I chose the cushiest chair there. She handed me a loose gauzy sundress and a pair of underwear and a soft sports bra, then brought me a cup of coffee and a package of cookies. “I ran home when Herne called me and I brought you some clothes. Now, get something in your stomach now. I’ll go order lunch.”
I changed clothes with Talia’s help while Yutani turned around. After I was out of the hospital gown and dressed, he regarded me with somber eyes.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked.
“My laptop, please. And can you ask Viktor if he has my purse? The last time I saw it was when I was sailing through the air toward the pavement.” I realized that my throat was hurting. I took a slow sip of coffee, and the warmth soothed the rough patches. “I must have been screaming and not realized it.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me.” Yutani leaned forward. “Are you sure you’re up to being here?”
“I have to be. If I went home, I’d just fret myself into a state. I’m exhausted and feel like I got hit by a sledgehammer, but other than that, I’m okay. I’m lucky, the doctor said, and from what I could see, he’s right.” I held his gaze. “A crow saved my life. It distracted me, and I turned around to look at it. Otherwise the blast would have hit me face on and this would have had an entirely different ending. Maybe I would have survived, but I would have been injured far more seriously than I was.”
Crows and I were intimately tied together. I wasn’t sure how, though I had the suspicion it was via Morgana, given the crow necklace she had given me. But I knew that the crow hadn’t just randomly appeared to help me.
Yutani nodded. “Your spirit animal. The crow, that is.”
Viktor appeared in the doorway, and he tossed my purse on the table.
“Thanks. I don’t know what happened to your twenty, by the way. It was in my hand when the explosion happened.”
“Don’t sweat it. Not an issue,” Viktor said.
I thanked him and dug out my tablet and phones, checking them to see if they were still working. My phones were, both the home and work cell phones, but the tablet’s glass was cracked. I showed it to Yutani.
“Here, let me check it out.” He played around with it for a moment. “Okay, I think this is fried. I’ll set you up with a new one. Luckily, we back up everything on an encrypted cloud base.” He disappeared out the door.
I ate three of the cookies, then sipped more of the coffee, but I was feeling shaky as hell, and I wasn’t sure whether it was the injuries themselves, or just the shock of the morning. Talia noticed and brought me a throw from one of the armchairs over by the window. I draped it over the back of the chair and around my shoulders, so it wouldn’t lay against the cuts.
“You need more than coffee right now. I know that Angel is ordering lunch, but here.” She poked around in the fridge and came up with a blueberry yogurt. “Here, eat this. It has some protein in it.”
At that moment, Angel came in. “Lunch will be here in about ten minutes. I ordered from Anton’s Fish Shack. Clam chowder, fish and chips, slaw, and biscuits. I ordered enough for an army, so eat as much as you need.” She slid into the chair next to me, looking at me with worried eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“Like death warmed over. But I’m lucky, I really am. So many dead and injured.” I motioned to the TV. “Can somebody turn it on so we can see what they know?”
“You know they won’t be broadcasting everything, but all right.” She turned on the TV and then headed back to her desk to wait for the food.
While we waited for Yutani and Herne to return, Talia, Viktor, and I watched the news. The damage was devastating, and had destroyed the entire bottom level of the building. It had damaged the upper floors as well, and everybody had been evacuated while the fire department fought the flames that were still burning.
“The Tuathan Brotherhood has claimed responsibility for this explosion. While little is known yet about the method of delivery, or the explosives involved, we do know that at least twenty are dead, and over forty people have been injured, most of them seriously.”
The newscaster sounded far too chipper for my tastes, and I glared at her as she rattled off the standard shtick that the broadcasters were expected to parrot. The scenes of the explosion were hard for me to look at. As I stared at the outside of the bank, where the doors had once been and where I had been standing, I suddenly remembered the black sedan.
“I remember something—Viktor, do you remember the black sedan that was parked in front of the bank? I remember thinking it was odd because the motor was still running. It pulled out as I was flying through the air, toward the road.”
He straightened. “You’re right. Do you remember anything about the car?”
I closed my eyes. Everything was jumbled up, but I did my best to visualize the sedan. I could see it, engine idling as I passed between it and the SUV.
“Nobody came out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, nobody came out of the bank as I was heading up the stairs. Unless somebody got into the car who was already down on the sidewalk, it was just parked there until the explosion and then drove off. Which could mean that whoever was inside was waiting for the blast to happen.”
Talia handed me a pen and a pad of paper. “Can you see the license plate?”
I closed my eyes, letting my mind drift, which wasn’t difficult. I brought my attention to the car, trying to visualize the sedan. It was black, sleek—a foreign build—and then the emblem jumped out at me. It was a crouching lion. Not a Jaguar, but…
“It was a Panther XL—I remember thinking that must be one hell of an expensive car.”
“Good, that helps. Anything else stand out, any part of the license plate?” Viktor asked, keeping his voice low.
I let myself drift deeper, tumbling down the rabbit hole that felt like it was growing so large and deep that I might not be able to pull out should I let myself freefall. And then, there it was, floating in front of me, a license plate. Only the first four digits were visible, but those were clear as day.
“Yeah, I remember four of them. GFR5…the other three are cloudy, but those were the first four.” As I opened my eyes, Talia was already tapping away at her keys. Finally, we might have a break in the case.