Embraced by Embers

by Kasey Mackenzie

  “Well given that St Gabriel is in Iowa, that’s not a shock. I’m sure you didn’t expect to get stranded here with us.”

  She nodded and a sincere smile lit up her face. “Other than the whole Drew almost killed me thing, I find I don’t mind being stranded here too much. The company more than makes up for the lack of wardrobe.”

  Dia broke in with a smirk. “Any company is a thousand times better than being stuck with Baby Brother and Daddy Dearest. Their track record of killing and trying to kill Cass here is a mile long.”

  Jake leaned between us with a sour expression. “Thanks for that reminder, Dia.”

  She patted his arm with a wink. “Simmer down, J, as Isaac would say. Cass has come a long way since the first two times Garret killed her. I’m placing my money on Big Sis going forward.”

  I rolled my eyes but couldn’t hold back a grin. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dia. What a switch from that day we met. Remember when you claimed you couldn’t possibly be related to someone stupid enough to be killed by our father twice? Fun times.”

  Rather than blush, she tossed her head, setting her gorgeous curls (I had stuck-with-straight-hair envy) bouncing. “I have no problem revising my opinion of people once they prove my first impression wasn’t quite accurate.”

  Jake’s turn to roll his eyes. “What she really means is that she can’t cast stones at someone needing to be saved from your evil genius father when she had to be whisked away by Bianca.”

  Lily jumped to Dia’s defense. “To be fair, Dia wasn’t raised to be an Elemental badass warrior like the people in your clan, or those in our… evil genius father’s service.”

  “Uh, neither was I! In fact, I didn’t even know magic was real until the first time he killed me!”

  Dia gave a laissez-faire sort of shrug. “We could go around like this all day, but maybe we should save our overdue sister rivalry for later. We’ve got a lot to get done today.”

  “You just don’t want me to win this argument,” I accused with a grin. She blew me a kiss and I laughed. “Fine, then, we better get this show on the road.”

  We left Lily in the capable hands of Rhianne and company, piling into two SUVs to head to the home address of one Detective Tyrone Abrams. The retired police officer still lived in the area of St. Louis City that he had served and protected for over thirty years.

  Not wanting to scare our potential source of information away, we split into two groups. One SUV parked at a busy coffee shop to grab a snack and stand ready as backup. That left Dia, Nic, Liam, Jake, and me to approach Detective Abram’s house with a hopefully less scary-looking number.

  Theo and Melody hadn’t loved being separated from their chief babysitting target, but they couldn’t really argue that the five of us could take care of ourselves.

  Jake got a similarly mulish look on his face when I asked him and Liam to stay in our SUV parked on the street, but I arched a brow. “What do you think will put someone more at ease? A group with three men and two women or one with two women and one man?”

  Dia wagged a finger in the air. “And before you bitch about not being the token man we take, remember that these are our siblings we’re trying to avenge.”

  Nic nodded with narrowed eyes pinning Liam to his spot behind the steering wheel. Liam grinned and held his hands up in surrender. “No arguments from me.”

  Jake gave in with ill grace by waving us off. I returned that with a much jauntier gesture and sauntered down the cement sidewalk to the large, brightly-painted front porch. The house—like many in St. Louis City—was an imposing brownstone separated into two units. Nic had said that Detective Abrams and his wife lived on the first floor and rented the top story to one of their adult children. Both units appeared in good upkeep from the outside looking in; not that we could see much in the second story windows.

  The sounds of a popular game show filtered out of an open window. The Abramses had opted to take advantage of the unseasonably cool August morning and shut off the AC. Of course, that just meant it was in the upper 70s rather than the 80s or 90s. Most August afternoons in St. Louis roasted in the lower 100s. Something this particular Phoenix did not enjoy despite my affinity with Fire.

  Dia took the lead and knocked on the door, since the doorbell had an Out of Order sign taped over it. Given how immaculate everything else appeared, I wondered whether one or both of the Abrams just plain didn’t care for the blare of doorbells. The game show went silent, and footsteps drifted out the window. The door swung open to reveal a handsome Black man with close-cropped gray hair and a well-trimmed goatee. He wore tan khakis that looked freshly pressed and a casual polo shirt that broadcast his position as a St. Louis Blues fan.

  His eyes assessed us openly without any signs of wariness, but I was willing to bet he’d react to any signs of threat in a heartbeat. He was polite—and old-school—enough to answer the door without someone texting or calling ahead, but I wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking him helpless just because he was mortal. Hell, I’d thought I was mortal mere months ago.

  He nodded with a small smile. “Good morning. I’m afraid that if you’re selling something, we’re simply not interested.”

  Dia smiled brightly. “We’re terribly sorry to bother you out of the blue like this, Detective Abrams. But you see, the three of us recently discovered we all share the same biological father—our mothers used sperm donors—and we believe that two of our siblings were victims in an old case of yours. We—well, we just couldn’t bear the thought of their murders still being unsolved all these years later. They were just children when they died.”

  Detective Abrams’ expression moved to a combination of wary and empathetic. I admired how he managed to pull off both emotions at once. “I’m sure you can understand why I’m not comfortable inviting strangers into my home, but...I don’t see why we can’t sit on the porch for a spell.”

  He called into the room behind him for someone—presumably his wife—to go on watching the game show without him while he chatted with a few old friends. Then he gestured for us to settle upon a large porch swing that accommodated all three of us while he pulled up a wooden rocking chair. I just barely resisted the urge to start swinging my feet. Hard to resist a good porch swing!

  One urge I didn’t resist was using Spirit to encourage Detective Abrams to trust us more quickly than he would otherwise have done. Given the time crunch we were under, it was a necessary evil.

  Detective Abrams slid his gaze from one of our faces to another, and shrewdness lit inside his eyes. “I can tell just by looking at you that you’re here about the Bi-State Beheadings.”

  I blinked in surprise because he had nailed it in one. Then again, he was a highly decorated police detective with decades of experience.

  Dia shared in being impressed. “How on earth did you possibly guess that?”

  A more sincere smile than his welcome one touched his lips. “They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, and it’s pretty noticeable that all three of you share the same striking blue eyes. That’s especially noteworthy given that all three of your mothers are obviously of different racial heritages.” His expression sobered dramatically. “You have the exact same eyes as those two poor kids whose crime scene photos haunt me to this day.”

  I kept my voice easily solemn. “Mariana Vasquez and Simon Dawes.”

  He nodded grimly. “Not a night has passed since I tied those two cases together that I haven’t prayed for their souls. It’s one of my biggest regrets that I was never able to bring their true killer to justice.”

  That had me drawing up short. “Their true killer? We had heard their case went unsolved. That it was a cold case.”

  His lips twisted sardonically. “We had one solid suspect that we could never pin the charges on securely enough to stick, but he was very obviously only a hired hitman.” He hesitated. “Just how much of the case are you familiar with? I don’t want to shock you with details about what your siblings went through.”


  Nic fielded that one. “We’ve read all the case files and viewed all the crime scene photos.”

  Detective Abrams shook his head ruefully. “Not even going to ask how you got access to all that. So you know that each child was shot in the head execution style—and then brutally beheaded. The gunshots indicated the cool actions of a professional. The beheadings that followed were far bloodier and a hundred times more personal. Emotional. Fueled by a rage that never really made sense to me given how young both children were. One was 14 and the other 13. How could anyone possibly hate them enough to not only have them murdered but then desecrate their bodies like that?”

  Internally I screamed Because their killer is an evil, jealous piece of shit who wanted to make sure neither sibling could come back to life! But outwardly I merely said, “Whoever he was must have been all kinds of screwed up.”

  Detective Abrams shook his head. “She.”

  That statement had the three of us siblings exchanging shocked expressions. Dia gave voice to our surprise. “She? The reports we read never mentioned a woman.”

  “Girl, more like it. At least that’s always been my feeling.” Detective Abrams shook his head with a disgusted expression. “You didn’t find any mention of her in the case file because someone way above my pay grade came down like a ton of bricks to sanitize that part of my notes.”

  A sick feeling now churned in the pit of my stomach. “Can you tell us what was sanitized from those notes?”

  He must have sensed the intensity in my voice, because he leaned forward and met my gaze with matching fervor. “Mariana was murdered first, and her body was found in her own bedroom by her adoptive father. He was actually an ER doctor and knew enough not to disturb the crime scene. It was tragically obvious the moment he saw her that she couldn’t be saved given the beheading. He immediately called 911, and I was the first officer to step into that room.

  “Once we processed the scene for everything obvious and removed her body, her father kindly agreed to go over everything that remained to note whether anything seemed out of place. At first, he didn’t notice anything obvious. But then he saw the lipstick marks.”

  I frowned. “I assume by that you mean Mariana didn’t wear the same kind?”

  “Mariana didn’t wear any lipstick. Her father was a very strict Roman Catholic who forbade her to wear makeup until at least age 15. She was only 13.” He raised a hand when Dia started to speak. “And I spoke with her friends in addition to searching her belongings at both home and school. Mariana was a little immature for her age so not yet interested in makeup. She was also very much a daddy’s girl who hated to disappoint him.”

  Nic asked the next logical question. “Where were the lipstick marks?”

  “The first her father noticed were on the wrapper of a candy bar Mariana started as a snack but didn’t finish before her attack. We surmised that the unknown female must have taken a bite to leave that mark. Another mark was left on the can of Dr. Pepper Mariana drank that afternoon.” My pulse skipped a beat at hearing my slain sister had shared in my caffeinated addiction. “The remaining marks—eight in total—were deliberately left upon every personal photo featuring Mariana smiling, placed directly upon her face. Whether to kiss her goodbye or to block that face from view out of some sense of guilt, I’m not sure.”

  My mouth went dry, and I glanced at my brother and sister from the corner of my eyes. They appeared equally disturbed, and I had no doubt we were all thinking similar dark thoughts. I swallowed to clear the lump in my throat. “Just because it has to be asked, are you sure a girl left those marks?”

  Detective Abrams gave a small smile of approval. “Good question. Obviously anyone can wear lipstick. But we also had a DNA sample we tested at the time, thanks to the saliva on the half-eaten candy bar and soda can. It clearly revealed that a female left them behind.”

  I frowned and tilted my head. “Wait, there was DNA taken and results obtained? That wasn’t included in the case file.”

  Dia shook her head with a bitter smile. “Undoubtedly part of the cover-up from above, am I right?”

  Detective Abrams nodded. “Correct again. They culled those results, and I didn’t have backups of those like I did the notes they destroyed. I never actually even saw the full report—DNA testing was a lot less advanced than today. All I saw was the prelim confirming the sex of the person who left the lipstick marks.”

  Nic tapped his foot idly on the ground. “And you obviously would have questioned all her family and friends about the lipstick.”

  “Indeed. None of them wore that brand or color. Mariana’s closest friend Carmela was equally sheltered and uninterested in cosmetics. She was also diabetic.”

  My eyes widened. “Meaning she would have been less likely to steal bites of sugar-filled soda and candy.”

  “Maybe other diabetic kids would have impulsively risked a bite here or there, but not Carmela Giovanni. Every indication about her suggests she was even more of a people pleaser than Mariana. And she hated having diabetic emergencies more than anything. Plus, most telling of all, there were several strands of blonde hair found at the scene. Strands of hair that—you might not find shocking—mysteriously vanished from the evidence room. We were never able to find anyone among Mariana’s friends or family who matched that hair.”

  Dia, Nic, and I exchanged another meaningful look. We were all sharing the same suspicion of who that mystery lipstick-wearer could be, but none of us wanted to say it out loud. Not even telepathically. I could feel their shared reluctance through our bond.

  I took a deep breath and glanced back at Detective Abrams. He met my gaze unflinchingly. “You think you know who the girl that left those marks and hair was.”

  My poker face kicked into full effect, but his decades of police intuition probably helped him see through it. Not that it mattered. First of all, he was a retired detective who I had no desire to put in any more danger than coming here had already done. And second of all, he literally couldn’t bring Mariana’s killer to justice, no matter the identity of the Elemental who’d finished what the assassin’s bullet started.

  “I don’t know who left those marks or the hair strands, but everything you’ve said confirms that the killer can’t be the man who we thought it might have been.”

  His intensity faded slightly. “Ah, that makes sense.”

  Nic brought us back on track. “So how did you link that first case to Simon’s murder?”

  Detective Abrams sighed. “It didn’t happen right away. Simon was actually murdered before Mariana, but his body wasn’t identified until a few weeks later. His foster parents were pretty terrible people who didn’t even report him missing. Just kept right on cashing the checks from the state until a concerned guidance counselor at his school contacted authorities when she stopped buying the excuses his parents gave for his continued absence. That’s when the John Doe whose body was found at a campsite about two miles from his home was identified as him.”

  Frustration laced his voice. “I didn’t get to see that crime scene for myself. Same murder method—single gunshot followed by post-mortem beheading. More blonde hair found at the scene, which of course also vanished from the evidence room. Once the two cases were linked, the second was transferred to me and I was able to connect some dots the first detective hadn’t known were significant. Another half-eaten candy wrapper with lipstick marks and a soda can with the same. They did not catch that the first time, and the DNA was degraded by the elements before he was found by hikers.”

  Dia clenched her fists. “What was that poor kid doing camping out there alone anyway?”

  “Remember how I mentioned he had terrible foster parents? He’d go out there regularly to get away from them when they went on all-night drunken binges. Which happened way more often than any kid should have to endure. Simon was just coming into his full growth, and he was a large kid. Well over six feet tall. And he didn’t want to snap on his foster father since that asshole�
�pardon the vulgarity—regularly hit him when drunk. Given that his foster father was white and Simon black, he understandably worried that he’d be the one arrested even if just defending himself.”

  Dia and Nic shared a look that spoke volumes of understanding. I could only wince in sympathy since there was no way I could fully grasp dealing with that level of racism on a constant basis.

  “They also recovered a few photos from his wallet. Everyone showing his own smiling face bore lipstick marks. Those were mostly of him and his friends. His parents gave him precious little reason to smile. The original detective assumed the lipstick marks on the photos came courtesy of a girlfriend despite the obvious. Simon was not yet into girls romantically speaking. All his friends confirmed that. He admitted to one of them he’d be too ashamed to bring a girl home with the hell his parents put him through. Plus he was only 14 so figured he had plenty of time for girls once he hopefully made it to a new foster family.”

  I shook my head sadly. “Except he never made it to a new family.”

  Sadness shadowed his expression when he echoed my headshake. “No, no he did not.”

  Nic broke into the mournful silence after a few moments. “Can you think of anything else important to know that wasn’t included in the sanitized case files?”

  Detective Abrams tilted his head back and pursed his lips. “I don’t think so. The suspected hitman’s name should be in the file, although they made have locked that info to a higher classification level than your—informant—had access to.”

  I read between the lines that he had guessed the truth: we had someone hack into the case files. He was insinuating that there could be more useful information but that it might be beyond our reach. Given that Nic had never shared a suspect name with us, I was willing to bet that was indeed the case. Shivers danced upon my skin as I glanced from Detective Abrams to the window behind which his wife sat watching a game show. It was possible that the suspect could be out there watching now; or that the girl-turned-woman behind the murders would realize we’d questioned the detective. I felt compelled to minimize the danger to him and his wife as much as possible. Which meant exercising an aspect of my gift I’d studied but not yet put much to practice.