14

Adam

“Run it by me again,” Early said.

The interrogation room was more of a little office with a plastic folding table in it, but Adam was plenty intimidated.

Vran had left him there, let him get caught. Adam did not know if the elf was malicious or just mischievous. Either way he shouldn’t have let his guard down. Baby elf, baby prick.

He was probably laughing at Adam from the Other Side.

“I told you,” Adam explained. “I went to see if any of my stuff was there. And it was. Lots of it.”

“And I already told you that if it was, you wouldn’t be getting it back, that it’s tainted with who knows what,” Early said. “You’re lucky you didn’t spend much time in there.”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said. “I got upset thinking about Spider.”

“The cat?” Early asked.

“Sue’s cat,” Adam stressed.

“Does this have anything to do with the satanic shit?” Early asked. “The bones?”

Adam blanched.

“Don’t play dumb,” Early said. “I went to school with your dad. I know all about his aunt and her”—he paused to make air quotes—“psychic readings. I showed you those pictures and you just had to have a closer look.”

“Yeah,” Adam admitted, hoping that putting a bit more of the truth into his lie would get him out of this. “I don’t know what Jodi was playing at. Sue wasn’t into anything like that, bones or whatever. She just read cards and tea leaves.”

Adam didn’t go into the difference between life and death magic, the difference between what warlocks did, subverting life, and what Sue had done, using her own magic, her life or power, to peek into the future or the past. Early would either think he was delusional, or worse, involved.

“So if we were to go through your car or get a warrant to search your mom’s place, we wouldn’t find anything like that?” Early asked.

“Hell no,” Adam said, letting his accent out. “She invited you in. She meant it. There’s nothing to see there.”

“We wouldn’t find walls painted black or tarot cards?” Early asked.

“Tarot cards?”

“Your cousin left some behind.”

Adam hadn’t seen those, but it wasn’t a surprise. If Jodi were making summoning charms she probably had a Tarot deck. Early would have taken them for evidence.

Adam had to step carefully. Sue’s cards, his cards, were all he had left of her. He wouldn’t give them up without a fight.

“You’d find some cards,” he admitted. “Sue gave them to me before I left, but they’re only special because they were hers. You can buy them at any bookstore.”

Early narrowed his eyes. He was clearly done playing nice.

The cards shouldn’t make him suspicious of Adam. Then again, this was Guthrie. A Dungeons & Dragons manual might start a panic.

“Sue didn’t mean anything by it,” Adam said, leaning across the table between them. “She helped people.”

“Conned them, you mean,” Early said, his tone firm.

So that was how it was going to be. Gone were the smiles and the mirror shades, the friendly, folksy sheriff. A good bit of Early’s drawl had gone away as he continued, “Plenty of people didn’t look kindly on your great-aunt and her line of work. Maybe one of them had something to say about it, and maybe they were right.”

“Sue told people what they needed to hear,” Adam said. “Like, yes, they needed to get that cough checked out or should tell their spouse how they really felt. She helped people, and yeah, she dressed it up in a little fortune-telling.”

Sue’s Sight had been spot-on, but she’d been smart about it, knew when to tell people the truth and when not to. That must have been why she hadn’t told Adam so many things.

“Digging up bones,” Early said. “That’s the kind of stuff serial killers do.”

“Doesn’t it work the other way?” Adam asked. The sheriff didn’t look amused.

“I don’t know what Noreen or Jodi were playing at,” Adam said.

“You sure they weren’t yours, Adam? It was your room. Like you said, your stuff was still there.”

Adam knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t quite certain what the sheriff was accusing him of.

“And why would they be?” Adam asked. His voice was ice-cold, like Silver or Argent before they drew their blade. But they weren’t here. Neither was Vic. Adam was alone, and this was not a situation he could solve with magic.

“I know you did time at Liberty House before it closed. I know what they used to say about you, that you were unstable. Maybe Noreen said it too. Maybe she said it one too many times, and you decided you’d had enough.”

“Noreen was cooking meth,” Adam said. “You said it yourself, those labs explode. And are you forgetting the part where I saved her life?”

Early conceded the point with a nod.

“She got the trailer. She got everything,” he said. “I think Sue was afraid of you. I think you going to Denver was the best thing that happened to her. And it would have worked out, if you’d left well enough alone, but you couldn’t stand Noreen having what you didn’t.”

Adam laughed.

Not long ago he would have been proud to call Sue’s trailer home, but he wanted more now. Maybe not what Bobby wanted, a house in the suburbs and some perfect made-up life, but he wanted . . . what, an apartment with Vic?

Adam couldn’t say. He only knew that he wanted more—more than this, more than Guthrie had to offer.

“I have a life, Sheriff. A better life now. I loved Sue. I’d never hurt her daughter. I wouldn’t even know how to blow up a meth lab without incinerating myself. I didn’t like Noreen,” Adam said calmly, “but I wouldn’t try to kill her.”

“Maybe not you,” Early said. “After all, you’re not the one who slapped her at the funeral. Rung her bell pretty good too.”

“You think my mom blew up the trailer?” Adam asked. “My mom?”

He poured as much disbelief into his voice as possible. There it was, the danger, because Adam’s mother had shown her temper. She’d defended Adam publicly. Now Early was trying to put together some kind of theory, build a case.

“You know my mom, Sheriff,” Adam continued. “She wouldn’t do something like that.”

“And what about your daddy, Adam Lee?” Early asked.

Ice ran up Adam’s spine.

“What about him?” he asked.

“He’s been gone a long time. No one’s seen him in years.”

“He ran off,” Adam said, dredging up the old lie. Hell, until recently he’d thought it was true. He could pretend to believe it a little longer. He let the hurt show in his eyes, the abandonment he’d felt for all those years.

Early took a long sip from his coffee mug. It said World’s Best Dad.

“Funny though,” he said. “These days you can find anyone, the Internet and all that. We’re cops. We have search engines for everything, hunting down deadbeat dads and the like. Your father isn’t anywhere we can find him.”

“What are you saying, Sheriff?” Adam asked.

“I’m not saying anything. I’ve got nothing, Adam. I think you know that, just a bunch of odd coincidences that don’t add up. But something around your family ain’t right. I don’t know if you’re involved or not. But I think you know something you aren’t saying, and I think you want to tell me what it is.”

Adam leaned back in his chair. He wasn’t certain how to act, what would be natural in the moment.

He could summon anger, seem pissed, not worried or panicked. He wished he could ask Vic what he should do.

Adam decided to try the truth—or at least some of it.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know whose bones those are, but you’re right, something’s wrong with my family, at least my cousin. I wish I knew where she was, and if I did, I’d tell you, because I think she’s the only one with any answers.”

Early took another long sip from his coffee.

“I believe you,” he said. “But I’d appreciate it if you stayed out of my crime scenes.”

“I promise,” Adam said.

“You can go, but don’t leave town,” Early said.

There was no worry about that. Adam had too many things to sort out.

He left the police station. Early had been kind enough to have a deputy drive the Cutlass over.

Adam growled as he adjusted the mirrors. He didn’t like other people driving her, but he had other things to worry about.

Finding Jodi was the most important thing at the moment.

Adam knew where to start. Last he’d heard, she’d been working his mom’s old job at the gas station.

He wondered about their inventory. If they stocked cold meds and how well they kept track of them. Jodi could have sourced some of what they’d needed for the meth lab that way.

He drove out to the gas station, but Jodi wasn’t working. The man behind the counter went from surly to outright pissed when Adam asked about her.

“She hasn’t shown up in two days,” he said. “You see her, you tell her that’s a walk out. This is an at-will state. That means no unemployment!”

Adam left; he was glad he hadn’t bought any gas there.

Jodi wasn’t his favorite, but the rage rolling off the man was out of proportion. It reminded Adam of his dad, the way the simplest thing could set Robert Senior off.

Adam didn’t know his cousin that well, but he had a phone and was about the only person in the world without some kind of social media presence.

Jodi’s stuff was all public. He didn’t even have to create an account to see her posts.

Most of them were dumb memes, a lot of anti-immigrant garbage, the kind of crap Adam would have expected from Noreen’s daughter.

Then he found another account, Mystic Mysteries, and suddenly understood the quick redecoration of his room.

She’d just gotten started, posting just one video of her explaining a tarot card.

She’d set her phone up to record herself leaning against the wall she’d painted black. Dressed in a lacy bra, Jodi drew the Moon and smiled into the camera.

“It’s always the Moon for me,” she said a little breathlessly. “So we’ll start there.”

She went on to give a pretty textbook explanation of the card, nothing Adam hadn’t heard from Sue, but she left out that the Moon often meant what wasn’t seen.

And while she didn’t have a 1-800 number, she did take donations through the Internet, offering a personal reading, a blessing, and a bonus sexy pic in exchange for money.

Jodi promised more readings and signed off.

She was Sue’s niece. She might have some Sight, but her interpretations of the card had felt memorized, what you’d pick up from a quick Internet search.

Adam had never talked to Sue about Jodi, about whether or not other Binders had magic. His own was so different than Sue’s, a mix of bloodlines that included hers, but also his mom’s and a touch of something wild that had always felt uniquely his own.

He wished he could talk to Silver about this, especially about bloodlines. More than anyone, his ex had seen Adam’s magic up close, but the idea felt too intimate, especially since many of Adam’s lessons with the elven prince had come with bonus make-out sessions. That, and it was never good to ask elves for favors.

“Mystic Mysteries,” Adam muttered.

And Jodi had thought Spider was a dumb name for a cat.

Maybe Jodi and her mother wanted to inherit more than Sue’s trailer. Maybe they wanted Sue’s business, the small network of clients that despite what Adam had told Early, had kept the
lights on.

Adam couldn’t see that going well. Noreen wouldn’t settle for helping people move past slights and old griefs. More than anything, Sue had been something of a counselor for people who couldn’t afford therapy. He’d seen the similarity as soon as he’d moved in, and he’d been to enough sessions at Liberty House to know.

Noreen would try to exploit the people who would have come to Sue for help. Had Jodi called the druid to them on purpose?

It seemed like it, but it still didn’t answer the matter of the bones. Adam considered the druid’s eyes, blue like Sue’s, blue like his. Blue like his dad’s.

Adam could show the tarot video to Early, give him a lead and get him looking away from Tilla, but no, Adam needed to find more first.

He needed to find Jodi. She had answers, and worse, she had the druid’s attention.

Adam kept scrolling between Jodi’s posts on her other feeds. How many accounts did she have?

“Hey, guys!” she said, starting one video. “Guess who scored tickets to see Chlamydia Clown Car?”

Adam made a gagging sound at the name. He zoomed in on the tickets Jodi waved at the camera as she blew a kiss. The show was that night, at a bar called Tornadoes. The website showed that it was built out of an old double-wide trailer.

“Keep it classy, Guthrie,” Adam said.