The Kolchak Squad was a division of LAPD that dealt with the weirder side of life—in other words, anything to do with supernaturals. Every major city has one, although only the Los Angeles division was named after Carl Kolchak of Nightstalker fame.
I’ve heard the department compared to The X-Files, except there are no skeptics on the Kolchak Squad. Their members are either supes themselves or well aware of their existence. A prerequisite for the latter is not being freaked out by the thought that it was entirely possible the ordinary-looking couple next table at your favorite restaurant might not be human.
Detective Maggie Fitzgerald had her notebook open, pen in hand, while she asked questions and recorded my answers. Tall and broad-shouldered, Det. Fitzgerald was a quintessential example of Black Irish. Glossy dark hair in an impeccable French braid. Blue eyes the color of gentian. A slight lilt to her voice that spoke of her Gaelic ancestry.
After she and another member of the Kolchak Squad—a tall, skinny man, so thin that the phrase “stick insect” came to mind—had met me by Jada’s vehicle and poked around for a bit, we’d gone to the Ranch. Sean and Seth were there, and the five of us were sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee courtesy of Seth. Much to his annoyance, Maggie took hers with cream and honey.
Her sidekick had a small plastic case dangling from a nylon cord around his neck, the word Bose stamped on it. Earplugs, I thought. Probably noise-canceling to keep his eardrums from imploding should his boss lose her temper. If I worked with Maggie Fitzgerald, I’d want those too, because being yelled at by a banshee is potentially lethal and never pleasant.
“When was the last time any of you saw Ms. Zephyr?”
“Saturday, two nights ago,” I replied.
She nodded, then turned to Seth and Sean. “What about you two?”
“Same,” Sean said. Seth nodded silently.
Back to me. “Anything weird or abnormal about her behavior?”
“She’d left the Ranch in… well, in kind of a huff.”
“Which isn’t necessarily abnormal for Jada,” Sean added.
“What d’ya mean by that?” Det. Fitzgerald shot him a sharp glance.
“She and I had words,” I interjected. “She got her feelings hurt, I tried to talk to her, and it didn’t go over well. We don’t get along that well and—”
“And Jada tends to overreact,” Sean said. Neither he nor his son looked the least bit perturbed at being questioned by the police. Not entirely surprising. Nephilim don’t have a lot of guilt in their genetics.
“Hmm.” She scribbled something in her notepad.
Meanwhile, I stared into my mug as if it held the secret to Jada’s disappearance. Maybe—just maybe—someone had stolen her car and crashed it. If this were the case, her being out of contact with any of us wasn’t a big deal. But had she shown up for work this morning on Vampshee 3: Child of Chaos?
I asked the question out loud, finishing with, “Because if she didn’t, that’s a reason to worry.” Det. Fitzgerald nodded, scribbled down some more notes. Turning to her subordinate.
“Check and see if she checked in with the production,” she said brusquely.
He nodded and left the room to make the call. I hoped Jada was there on set. That her vehicle had been stolen, taken for a joyride that hadn’t ended well, and that the thieves had limped away from the scene of the accident.
“Do you have anything to add, Ms. Striga?”
“Huh?” I looked up, startled out of my thoughts. “No, not really. I just hope she turns up on set.”
“Why didn’t the two of you get along?” she asked.
Oh lord, I thought. How did I even begin to unpack the baggage that Jada had where I was concerned? Before I could even try, help came from an unexpected source.
“Sibling rivalry without the benefit of being related,” Seth said bluntly. “Jada has always been resentful of Lee’s talent and place in our crew, and even though she took over Lee’s stunt-doubling of Kaley Avondale on The Netherworld Chronicles, it didn’t do anything to make Jada more secure, because she just wasn’t as good.”
I stared at Seth, trying to pick my jaw up off the ground. I could count on one hand the times he’d complimented me to my face, most of them in the last few months, and I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it.
Det. Stick Insect came back into the kitchen. He shook his head.
“She didn’t show up on set, and hasn’t called in.”
Sean and I exchanged worried looks. Seth’s face was expressionless, but his jaw tightened a little bit as he topped off our coffee without being asked. Det. Fitzgerald added more cream, stirring it in with a thoughtful look.
“Jada’s not the first to go missing in this neck of the woods over the last month or so, is she?” I asked.
“Sadly, she is not,” the detective confirmed. “Nor, indeed, over the last eighty or so years.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”
“As a heart attack,” she replied. “This area—” she gave a vague wave with one hand “—has always been known for assorted weird happenings. Not all bad, mind you, but enough in the files to ensure the Squad pays attention when we get a report out here.” From her tone, it sounded as if Maggie Fitzgerald had passion for this topic. “People began disappearing in a roughly ten-square-mile patch around here back when Ventura Boulevard was the main thoroughfare in the Valley.”
“Kind of a landlocked Bermuda Triangle,” I offered.
She gave a humorless smile. “You’re not the first to describe it as such.” She drained her coffee mug. “At any rate, if you hear anything from Ms. Zephyr, let us know. In the meantime… be careful.”