Ask and Answer

by Clara Coulson

  “Do you need to bypass any security measures to use it?” Hunt asked.

  “It’s a pretty old model, so I’m guessing…” Liam popped the back cover off the phone. “It’s missing the SIM card. But I bet you anything that Maitland kept the card on him, so he could destroy it in a hurry.”

  Liam crouched next to Maitland’s body and searched the man’s pockets, followed by his socks and shoes. He found the SIM card tucked under the tag on the tongue of Maitland’s left tennis shoe. “Bingo.”

  He inserted the SIM card, turned on the phone, and brought up the contact list. Over fifty names and numbers were on the list. The names were all initials followed by a description of the business they were involved in: horses, poker, heroin, cocaine, etc.

  Switching to the recent call log, Liam scrolled through slowly to see who Maitland had been chatting with in the hours before his death. One number, belonging to an “S.R.,” had called Maitland’s phone sixteen times in the week leading up to his death, but they hadn’t called once since Tuesday.

  “I got a lead on a number here,” Liam said to no one in particular. “I’m going to call Nick and have him look up the owner. You guys keep searching in the meantime, see if there’s anything else.”

  Everyone gave him a noncommittal grunt, and the white noise of knocking and rustling sounds resumed.

  Nick answered after two rings, yawning loudly. “What do you need, Crown? I was trying to catch a power nap before I got back to your—”

  “Sorry to cut your beauty sleep short, but I’ve got a phone number for you.”

  “Wait, really?” Plastic bags crinkled underfoot as Nick clawed his way out of bed and dropped down into his squeaky desk chair. “A number you got from Maitland?”

  “Maitland’s dead. Looks like he got in over his head with this one.”

  Nick let out a long whistle. “Damn, a lot of deaths this time around.”

  “You’re telling me.” Liam tapped the screen of Maitland’s phone, which had gone dim from inactivity. “You ready for the number?”

  “Yeah, hit me with it.”

  Liam passed it on, and Nick told him he’d need a few minutes to “get the goods.” So Liam put the phone on speaker and searched the rest of the trim for any more hidden compartments.

  Coming up empty, he dragged a chair from the tiny kitchenette into the living room and systematically checked the ceiling as well. He was just screwing the cover back onto the smoke detector when a hushed gasp and a faint “No way” emanated from the pocket where he’d stuck his phone.

  Climbing off the chair, Liam grabbed the phone and said, “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Man, you are not going to believe this,” Nick replied, an undercurrent of anxiety in his tone. “That number you gave me is the landline number for 1490 Summertime Drive. That’s the home address of Samuel Radigan.”

  You could’ve heard a pin drop as shocked silence enveloped the apartment.

  Liam was the first to break out of the stupor caused by Nick’s proclamation. He sputtered, “Samuel Radigan? You mean Pennsylvania State Senator Samuel Radigan?”

  “Yep,” Nick said, chuckling nervously. “That’s exactly who I mean.”

  11

  Kat

  Kat didn’t know a damn thing about Pennsylvania state politics, but she knew enough about the reach of people in power to realize that having a state senator involved in this case meant that their investigation had just taken a very dangerous turn. Which was why she didn’t object when Liam gave the abort order on the search of Maitland’s apartment.

  They all hustled out into the hall, Hunt shutting the door behind them, and hurried over to the stairwell, where Cortez had been keeping watch. The group exited the building in three minutes flat and crammed back into the SUV one minute after that.

  Liam let Hunt drive while he called Franc and told her to hightail it out of Bletchley Heights. “I don’t want to go back to my store,” he said to Hunt once he hung up, “just in case. You got any safe houses?”

  “I have a couple bolt holes,” Hunt replied, slowing down to the speed limit as they entered a part of town dotted with popular clubs and bars, where keen-eyed cops were more likely to stop speeders. “Nothing fancy, but the addresses aren’t tied to my name, and they’re in low-population areas. So if we get attacked, the chance of bystander injuries will be low.”

  “Good. Pick one and give me the address so I can pass it on to Franc.”

  Hunt rattled off a number and street name Kat had never heard of before.

  Liam made a dissatisfied sound. “That’s a storage unit, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a large, outdoor storage unit filled with emergency supplies.”

  “Ah.” Liam tapped out the address on his phone and sent off a text to Franc. “That’ll do then. I just don’t want to be caught in another tight space if that demon comes around again. Kat and Yun had a hard time fighting the possessed Cunningham in the Wilson house.”

  “Won’t be a problem where we’re going,” Hunt promised.

  Wringing her hands in her lap, Kat said, “You really think the senator had somebody watching Maitland’s apartment?”

  “I would have, if I was him.” Liam rolled his phone around in his hand. “Based on the call log on Maitland’s burner, Radigan was frequently calling him right up until the day that Cunningham got possessed and Maitland got his guts ripped out.

  “Which implies that Radigan knows Maitland is dead. Which implies that Radigan is in some way involved in the murder scheme. Could be that our rogue magician is a freelancer, doing magic for money, and Radigan paid him to perform the summoning in order to set this whole murder spree in motion.”

  “But why?” Yun asked, rubbing her tired eyes. “What could Senator Radigan gain from orchestrating the murders of shifter families?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” Liam frowned deeply. “But I’m damn well going to find out.”

  The SUV wound through miles of streets unfamiliar to Kat, tracing the outer edge of Salem’s Gate, until they arrived at a large storage facility. Five rows of outdoor storage units with wide gaps between them lay inside a rectangle of chain-link fencing topped with razor-wire.

  The fence had two gates, one for vehicles and one for pedestrians, and each gate had a stand in front of it with an electronic number pad attached. There was also a cramped security station, but tonight’s security guard had either skipped out on their shift, or the storage company had dropped the position to lower their expenses. The station sat empty, its door ajar.

  Hunt parked the SUV on a street a quarter mile from the storage facility, and they all waited to climb out until Franc’s car pulled in behind them. Their group fully reassembled at last, they set off for the facility, a tense silence lying heavily on the air around them.

  There was no one else on the street this time of night, the nearby houses dark, their windows shuttered to fend off the winter wind. Yet none of them were willing to whisper a word about the senator and his potential involvement in the murders in a public space. Just in case someone was listening from the shadows.

  At the pedestrian gate, Hunt punched in a four-digit code on the number pad, and the gate unlocked, accompanied by a faint buzz. Hunt held the small gate open until everyone passed the fence, then situated himself at the head of the group to lead them to his storage unit.

  The unit was conveniently located at the far end of the facility, right next to the section of the fence that bordered a patch of woodland. If they needed to make a run for it at some point, they had a simple escape route. All they had to do was jump the fence and run for the cover of the trees.

  Whispering a few words, Hunt brought down the wards securing the storage unit, then jimmied a key into the jumbo-sized padlock on the door. When the lock opened, he tugged it free and deftly lifted the rolling door. Finally, he whistled, and a trio of charms on the ceiling activated, casting
a soft white glow throughout the interior of the unit.

  “Huh,” Liam said, “you weren’t kidding when you said this was a safe house.”

  The unit had been done up to look like a room. A fold-out cot was situated along one wall, with a pillow and two blankets neatly arranged atop it. Beside the cot was a cheap plastic dresser with six drawers, all of them presumably filled with clothing fit for a variety of weather conditions.

  A few feet away from the cot was a makeshift bathroom area, cordoned off from the rest of the unit with a blue plastic curtain. A camping toilet lay nestled against the back wall, and nearby it, a water cooler suspended over a metal basin provided a means of washing your face and brushing your teeth.

  On the other side of the bathroom area was what Kat could only call a “command center.” Two filing cabinets met in the corner. In front of the filing cabinets, a circular folding table had been set out. Atop that table sat a laptop, a police scanner, a map of Salem’s Gate, and a set of magic tools—ink, paint, chalk, quartz crystals, and the like—in a small plastic box.

  Next to one of the filing cabinets was a closed gun locker, several boxes of bullets and tins of rock salt set before it. And finally, beside the gun locker, was a stack of buckets containing emergency rations.

  Hunt could live here for weeks.

  Why am I not surprised he’s a survivalist type? Kat thought.

  “Yay, a bed,” Yun muttered, tottering toward the cot. “I’m going to take a nap now. Wake me up when we’re ready to leave. Or when the demon comes for us. Whichever happens first.” She grabbed the pillow and plopped down on the cot, causing the springs to squeak in protest.

  “Um,” Franc said, “is now a good time for a nap?”

  “We can plan our next steps without her,” Hunt replied. “And it’ll be to our advantage if she sleeps off the lingering symptoms of the psychic attack before we have need of her powers.”

  Franc pursed her lips, not fully understanding the concept of a psychic attack. “If you say so.”

  Hunt pointed two fingers at Yun and murmured a short incantation. The air around the cot glowed violet for a moment.

  “What was that?” Kat asked.

  “Noise reduction spell. Now we can speak normally without disrupting her nap.” Hunt strode over to the table near the filing cabinets and pulled a few metal folding chairs off the top of a pile, handing them out to each person.

  Everyone placed their chair around the small table and sat down, save for Cortez, who refused a chair in favor of continually pacing the length of the storage unit. She paused her walk only to oblige Hunt’s request to close the rolling door, blocking off their clandestine meeting from any prying eyes.

  There were wards written onto the back of the rolling door. To her surprise, Kat recognized some of the symbols. They were meant to block scrying spells.

  Hunt dropped a six-pack of bottled water onto the center of the table, an offer to anyone who was thirsty, then began their meeting with a simple, “So what do we know about Senator Radigan?”

  “Too much,” Cortez said, “and also not enough.”

  Liam crossed his arms. “What do you mean?”

  “Radigan’s history jibes with a deep-seated hatred of shifters,” she clarified, “but setting up a brazen murder scheme does not.”

  Kat raised her hand like a high school student. “Can you explain why Radigan would have a reason to hate shifters?”

  “Oh, right.” Cortez tapped her temple. “You would’ve been too young to hear much about the matter, I guess. All of you would have been, except Mr. Huntington here.”

  “You’re referring to the death of Malcolm Radigan, I assume?” Hunt said.

  Cortez nodded. “It happened nearly twenty years ago. I was a college freshman at the time, and my campus almost burned to the ground during the riots that ensued.

  “When the story hit the wires, the whole world went crazy for a few weeks, shifters and mundanes at each other’s throats. Wolf packs prowling the streets in broad daylight, threatening anyone who stood in their path. Men with pitchforks and torches setting fire to shifter homes. God, what a mess that was.”

  Franc cocked her head to the side. “I have a vague recollection of studying that in school. Malcolm Radigan was a state senator, right? And he was killed by a wolf shifter?”

  “Correct,” Cortez said. “The Radigans are an old guard Pennsylvania family. The oldest son of each generation has always been involved in state politics, starting around the age of thirty and running all the way up to retirement in their sixties or seventies.

  “This generation, that lifelong politician was supposed to be Malcolm Radigan, who was Samuel’s senior by five years. But he’d only served half a term in office when the Unveiling happened, along with the massive social upheaval that followed.

  “During those turbulent days, it was common to see protests of varying size in front of local and state government buildings. City halls. The courts. The capitols.

  “People, both sup and non-sup, gathered wherever they thought their voices would be heard. Most of the time, the protests, whether they were for or against sup rights, were peaceful. But like with all large-scale social movements, every now and again, one of the protests turned violent.

  “One blustery November day, as the state senate was letting out after a long session, a group of anti-sup mundanes and a group of shifter counterprotesters wound up having a violent confrontation after a mundane human threw a large rock at the shifters and struck a young wolf shifter in the head, damaging her eye.

  “The shifters tried to rush the man who threw the rock, but the other mundanes defended him. And in seconds, the situation devolved into an all-out brawl.

  “Malcolm Radigan just happened to be leaving the capitol building at this time. Several members of his family, including his little brother, were waiting in a nearby limo to take him out to dinner. When the fight started, Malcolm tried to run for the safety of the limo, but he tripped and fell just a few steps shy of the door.

  “His family, inside the limo, could do nothing but watch in horror as a shifter who’d been driven into a rage by a silver injury inadvertently trampled Malcolm and critically wounded him. Samuel Radigan dragged his brother into the limo and had the driver rush to the hospital, but Malcolm died en route.

  “That wolf shifter was shot to death shortly after wounding Malcom Radigan, so he never faced any sort of formal charges. And since fifteen other people, mundane and sup, were killed during the riot, the press ultimately labeled it a ‘stalemate’ as opposed to placing the blame on either group.

  “A handful of people were prosecuted for assault and battery, but no one on either side caught a murder rap. Essentially, the whole thing was swept under the rug because the government was embarrassed they let the situation get out of control. None of the victims’ families ever really got justice.”

  Cortez leaned against the gun locker and sighed. “After that, Samuel Radigan took on the role of family politician. He won his brother’s seat in a landslide, and ever since, he’s taken a staunchly anti-sup stance, pushing all sorts of discriminatory legislation, against shifters in particular.”

  Rocking his chair back and forth, Casey asked, “If this guy hates shifters so much, then it makes sense that he’d be behind the murder plot, right?”

  Liam shook his head. “The exact opposite, actually.”

  Casey’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Huh?”

  “Because it’s too big a risk to the family name,” Kat said. “If it comes out that the Radigans are actively orchestrating the deaths of shifters, then the current Senator Radigan will lose his job and face multiple felony charges, which will irrevocably damage the family’s reputation. To a rich old political family like the Radigans, that reputation is everything. So for the senator to be brazen enough to concoct this murder scheme…”

  “Suggests something has re
cently changed for the worse,” Hunt finished. “Something is already poised to ruin the family’s reputation in the near future, so Radigan has nothing left to lose by involving himself in this murder plot.”

  “What about his freedom?” Casey asked. “You’d think that avoiding hard time in prison would be a good enough incentive to not commit murder.”

  “You assume a rich guy like Radigan would get sentenced to hard time.” Franc wagged her finger. “Families like the Radigans have substantial influence in all branches of government, including the courts. Most likely, Radigan would get off as lightly as the judge could manage, so the fallout would mostly damage the family’s public image, which is what they care about. Because if their image is soured, then their money is soured, and anything their money touches would spoil by association.”

  Casey frowned. “You’re saying the only thing that’s been holding back Samuel Radigan from launching an all-out war against the shifter community is the potential shrinkage of his family’s sphere of influence caused by the dirtying of their money?”

  “Exactly right,” said Cortez.

  Kat rapped her fingernails against the tabletop, rattling the jars filled with paint and chalk. “So something that happened recently caused Radigan to throw that huge, long-standing concern out the window. What could that ‘something’ have been?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea.” Cortez finally pulled a chair up to the table and sat down, shoulders sagging. “Naturally, the Salem’s Gate shifter community has been keeping tabs on the Radigan family since Malcolm’s death and Samuel’s ascension to anti-sup senator. But once the younger brother proved himself to be no more effective at stripping supernaturals of rights than any other anti-sup politician, he was deemed largely harmless to the shifters.

  “There have been no scandalous news stories about the Radigans in recent months, no rumors circulating about changing family dynamics, no major shakeups to their finances. Nothing. So whatever changed, it happened behind the tightly closed doors of the ancestral family home.