Winterstruck: an urban fantasy supernatural crime thriller

by Sara C. Walker

  I nodded. "That's my job. All I need is to know is where he lives. Can you help me with that?"

  He blinked. "I—I don't know."

  I put on a sympathetic smile. "This wasn't the first time he stopped in at Terrace Rouge, was it?"

  McFadden shook his head.

  "He's been there a few times this week, right? Has he ever given you an address? Have you ordered up a taxi for him?"

  He nodded, tears streaming down his face. "I—I think so."

  My pulse quickened. Come on, give me something good, something I can work with. Hammond was within reach. I nearly had him, I just needed to prompt McFadden's memory.

  I tried again. "He's come in a few times this week, brings a girl, and they leave together?"

  McFadden nodded. His lip trembled.

  "Does he always pay in cash?"

  He nodded.

  "Never a debit or credit card?" I could feel my heart racing, as he shook his head. "What about the taxi? Where does it go? Tell me!"

  He buried his face in his hands and sobbed. "I don't know! He doesn't tell me! I just call the cab!"

  I blew out a breath of frustration. It probably didn't matter. We knew Hammond went to the victims' homes, which meant a new location every time. What we needed was his home base.

  "Has he ever gone home alone?" I asked.

  He shook his head slowly, his eyes focused far away, his attention slipping. "I…I…uh…"

  "Think, dammit! Has he ever gone home alone?"

  "Yes! No! Maybe! I don't know!" He covered his face with his hands and sobbed anew.

  For cripes' sake! I knew getting info from Stuart was going to be like pouring maple syrup uphill in January, but that was when I knew him for a diva with a fake French accent. But this hot mess? Ugh. Shoot me now.

  He peeked at me between his fingers. "I'm dead, aren't I? I don't know anything useful, you're never going to catch him, and he's going to kill me. Right?"

  I stood up, turned my back to him, hit the button and set the elevator in motion. "Yep."

  "What is he? Some kind of magician for the mafia?" McFadden realized we were moving again, and suddenly became desperate.

  I smirked. Quite often, people found a way to justify their encounters with faeries, writing off what they'd seen with the most plausible explanations they could come up with. "Something like that."

  "But I don't want to die!"

  "Then stop doing drugs, stop hanging around with people who do drugs," I said simply, "and get out of the red with your dealers."

  I fingered the small spray bottle in my pocket. To anyone else, it would appear to be a mere bottle of breath spray. But in fact, it was Oshaun's special memory-erasing spray. Now that my interview with Stuart was over, I was supposed to spray him in the face and suggest he forget all about his faerie encounter. It was how we keep our secret safe. But in this case, with Hammond being as dangerous as he was, I had to figure Stuart would be better prepared if he remembered this conversation. If he feared for his life. If he could see Hammond coming before it was too late.

  The danger in letting him keep his memories was that he would continue to try to escape them. He would drown himself in drugs, trying hold together the pieces of his mind.

  The elevator hit the main floor and I stepped out. I had to admit I was also pissed off with him for keeping the truth from me. So I really didn't care if I left him afraid and fully aware there was something out there beyond storybooks and dreams and nightmares.

  "But you can't leave me here to die!"

  "Watch me." The doors slid shut, but I didn't move. I waited.

  Muffled screaming came to life as the doors slid open. "Wait! Wait! Wait!"

  I arched an eyebrow. I was not happy with him and he knew it.

  He panted for breath. "He uses Palomino Cab Company. Every time. Maybe they can tell you where he goes."

  "Has he ever gone home alone?" I spoke slowly, clearly, so he wouldn't miss a syllable.

  He swallowed. "Just once. The first night he came in."

  "I need the date."

  "I don't know. I can't be sure."

  "What were you serving that night?"

  "Calamari on angel hair pasta in squid ink sauce. I remember thinking no one in their right mind would ever order such a thing. I was right—about him at least. He didn't order any food that night. Everyone else did." Stuart squished his face into a sour expression.

  "What day was that?"

  "It…it was a Monday."

  "A Monday?"

  "That’s right. I remember now. Three weeks ago. I remember because the next two Mondays we served pasta with arugula and San Marzano tomatoes. Bigger hit with the clients." He grinned.

  I smiled sweetly. "See, now was that really so hard?" I patted him on the cheek. The clean one.

  "Are you really going to get him?"

  "I'm going to try."

  "You have to kill him," Stuart said with all seriousness.

  "That's not really what we do."

  Stuart reached out and grabbed my coat, wrenching it with both his fists. "Please. I don't want him to find me again."

  The fear radiating off him was worse than the stench of his sweat and bad breath. He trembled, his chin quivering. Silent tears streamed down his face. Pathetic.

  I sighed.

  "All right, Stuart," I said softly. "I'll get him."

  Hope gleamed from his eyes.

  I pulled out the spray and squirted him in the face. It took three pumps to get a decent mist. I shook the bottle. Empty.

  Crying out from the shock, he pinched his eyes shut and backed away. I waited for the formula to take effect, hoping he got a proper-sized dose.

  The question was what to do about his memories. I could try to make him forget about the fire, suggesting he wasn’t there at all, but time had passed, the fire was all over the news and people in his life knew he worked there. Someone would ask him about it, which would make an opening for his memories to return. But I also couldn’t leave him with all of his memories intact; he’d been spelled and he could identify Hammond as not being human.

  I couldn’t leave him with everything and I couldn’t take everything.

  "Stuart?" I asked cautiously.

  He tilted his face up, peeked between his fingers.

  "Oh my God, Stuart. Are you okay? What happened?" I pitched my voice up an octave and threw in mock sympathy.

  "I…I don't know," he said, sounding confused. "Do I know you?"

  "Sure, I live on the fifth floor. We've seen each other in the elevator. Aren’t you supposed to be out of town?"

  "Out of town?"

  "Yeah. Now that you’re out of work, you said you wanted to get out of town and start over somewhere new." Hopefully the suggestion would settle into his long-term memory and he would actually do it.

  "Out of work?" He rubbed a hand across his forehead. His eyes were unfocused, staring at the floor, as he searched his mind for the missing memories.

  "Yeah, total bummer. The restaurant burned down. And you don’t want to talk about it. Whenever someone mentions the restaurant or fire, you don’t remember what happened and you don’t want to talk about it." If his friends or family talk to him about the fire, I wanted him to keep his mouth shut. If he started to remember the fire, he might also remember Hammond. I couldn’t have that.

  "Oh."

  "Yeah. You want to get out of town for a few days, you know what I mean? Until things cool off." I needed him to stay away until new memories filled in the gaps.

  "I do?" He really did seem feverish—shivering and sweating. Maybe it wasn't just the drugs.

  "Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great idea."

  "Oh. Right. It does sound like fun." The cloudy look in his eyes started to clear.

  "Pack a bag and leave the city, Stuart. Find a new job in a new town and stay there." I pushed the button for his floor, and stepped out as the doors began to roll shut. "Don't do drugs."

  The doors slid closed a
nd I stalked out of the building.

  21

  Magnusson pulled up to the curb as I stepped outside the apartment building. The passenger window lowered.

  "Get in," he said.

  Friendly, as usual.

  I yanked open the door. "Where are we going?"

  "I got a call from Craddock."

  "I just interviewed the restaurant host, Stuart McFadden. I got the name of the cab company Hammond uses. We can use it to find out where he lives."

  Hopefully a capture was soon in our future.

  Magnusson frowned. Not the reaction I was hoping for. "We've got a new crime scene."

  "Oh?" My stomach sank.

  "We have another body," he said. "Hammond was busy last night."

  Great. Visions of last night's inferno and beach scene flashed through my mind. Guilt over Hammond's escape consumed me.

  "Any word from Harry?" I asked, desperately needing something else to think about. Needing some good news for a change.

  Magnusson frowned. "Uh." He cleared his throat. "Give him a break. It's only been a few days."

  "I know, but I was hoping…" That he missed me enough to send a note? We'd been partners for over a year, working together nearly twenty-four-seven. I thought I would have heard something from him.

  "Maybe if I send the message, he'll respond," I suggested.

  Magnusson grunted.

  It wasn't a yes or a no. It was an "I'm done with this conversation" grunt.

  I’d suspected there was something he wasn't telling me. Now I was sure.

  I only had to figure out what it was.

  We arrived at a townhouse complex at the west end of town. The streets in this neighbourhood looped around each other and all had similar names and identical rows of houses. Even the cars in the driveways were of similar makes, models, and colours. The only thing separating individual homes was the personalization of the front yards—the colour of the garage door, the style of the front walk, the choice of shrubbery. It would be easy to get lost in this place and pull up to the wrong house. I'd heard stories of people coming home from work, walking into the wrong house in neighbourhoods like this. I'd thought it just urban myth, but driving around these streets, I was beginning to believe the stories were true.

  Magnusson parked outside a townhouse with blue siding above pink brick and a purple garage door. Interesting colour choices. The boss popped his trunk and barked at me to bring the evidence kit. Collecting samples for Oshaun was my least favourite part of the job.

  A police cruiser parked in the driveway. I recognized the number on the rear.

  The driver of that cruiser met me at the front door.

  "Hey," he said, wearing a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Detective Randy Craddock, head of the Specialized Operations Unit at 47 Division, Toronto Metro Police. Magnusson stood behind him. They were about the same height—extra tall, but where Magnusson was built like he could stop a Mac truck, Randy was slim, like a swimmer. In his youth, he would have been lanky, but he'd since filled out and buffed up. I don't know about stopping a Mac truck, but I did know Randy stopped the hearts of a fair number of women. Including mine.

  As soon as I moved out of the foyer, reality hit me. Dolls and little tiny dresses lay scattered about on the floor, just part of a long line of toys spread out on the carpet.

  Oh, God. Someone lost their mother today.

  Magnusson led us to the carpeted stairs that would take us to the second floor. An abandoned teddy bear lay on one of the top steps. My throat tightened.

  Hammond had never taken the life of a parent before, that we knew of. All the other women were single or had boyfriends. Not one of them had a child. Until now.

  I could smell burned flesh as we reached the top of the staircase. Someone swore under their breath. I think it was me. My stomach felt like we'd just done the loop-de-loop on a rollercoaster at Canada's Wonderland.

  "Where's the child?" I asked. I couldn't proceed until I knew if the child was all right.

  Please, dear God, let the child be all right.

  Randy stepped forward with his notebook open. "After returning home from a skating thing—" He flipped through the pages. "Where is it? There it is. 'Dora and Diego on Ice,' the girl and her father—the vic's husband—found the victim."

  I held a hand to my forehead. "Why didn't the wife go with them?"

  "Apparently, they've been separated for about a year."

  Cripes.

  Getting impatient, Magnusson drew a breath. "If you're not going to make it, Ivory, wait in the car."

  I looked up and found his eyes boring into me. There was concern there, but it was more for maintaining professionalism than it was sympathy.

  I drew a breath to steady myself. "I'm fine, boss."

  I'd thought I'd feel better knowing a child wasn't upstairs and not a victim of a pervert faerie, but I still felt off. Part of that was knowing the child was now without a mother and would have to live with that for the rest of her life, but there was more.

  I'd felt queasy at crime scenes before, but this was different.

  I wanted Hammond captured. I wanted him behind bars, deep in a salt mine. If I didn't process this scene, I'd always wonder if something important was missed. Some small thing that would lead us to his capture so we could put him away for good.

  I set my evidence kit down once I'd reached the top of the stairs and put a hand over my mouth and nose to keep back the smell. The house was warm, not just in decor, but in temperature. Too warm.

  As I pulled three masks out of my kit, I slipped off my jacket and still felt overdressed. I passed out the masks and wiped sweat from my brow.

  "You're burning up," Randy observed. He hadn't removed his coat. Neither had Magnusson.

  "I'm fine," I insisted, pulling off my tangerine sweater to bare down to jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt that said, "Elvis is dead. Clap if you believe in Santa Claus."

  They were both looking at me with wide eyes. Must be the shirt.

  "What? I was in a hurry," I explained. "Cripes. It's just a shirt."

  "What are you doing?" Magnusson asked, eyeing me flapping my shirt to try to get some air movement and dry my clammy skin.

  "Can I help it if it's a sauna in here?"

  "It's not," he said icily.

  "First responders turned the heat off hours ago to preserve the scene," Randy said a little more helpfully. "I have their report here." He handed his notebook to the boss. Magnusson accepted it and tucked it into his own pocket without even looking at it. "I checked the thermostat. Fifteen degrees and dropping."

  "Oh," I said intelligently, picking up my case. "Then I guess I'm having a hot flash. If you'll excuse me, me and my hormone-ridden-self have some work to do."

  I was only twenty-five. It wasn't a hot flash, and they knew it. Could be the flu, but I'd be damned if I was going home now.

  "I need a drink," Magnusson muttered.

  "A little early for mead, isn't it?" When coffee and sandwiches wouldn't do, the boss went for mead. Occasionally he went for hard apple cider when mead wasn't available—and he always seemed surprised when it wasn't, as though everybody stocked mead in their liquor cabinets—but nothing else.

  I pushed past him in the narrow second floor hallway—or tried to, anyway.

  "Wait." Magnusson positioned himself between me and the master bedroom. The guy was a linebacker.

  "When did this start?" he asked. Concern edged at his voice, but I wasn't certain if it was for me or just for my ability to do my job.

  I shrugged like it was no big deal. "About five minutes ago."

  "You're not old enough for hot flashes," he said.

  "Maybe I have a faulty thyroid." I shrugged.

  His eyebrows shot up. "A faulty thyroid?"

  "I watch medical dramas."

  "Your thyroid is fine." He took me by the elbow and steered me back toward the stairs. "You were in that fire last night," he said softly. "It's possible it may have affect
ed you somehow."

  I yanked my elbow back. "Me?"

  "Everyone in that inferno could have been affected," he clarified.

  I suddenly felt sick. "Really?"

  Everyone. Everyone could be having hot flashes today. Could they also have dreamed of Hammond?

  I couldn't let my worry show. Magnusson would only use it as proof of why I shouldn't have a life outside the office. I didn't want him thinking there was anything that would keep me from doing my job to the best of my abilities. So I explained what Stuart had been wearing when I interviewed him, hoping my concern for Stuart McFadden overshadowed everything else I was thinking.

  "And he was sweating," I pointed out. "I thought he was just wasted."

  But maybe he wasn't. Maybe something more was going on.

  Magnusson frowned. "You'll have to interview him again when he’s sober."

  "We may not be able to use him at all. He's a crackhead." I told him about the only lead I'd gotten from Stuart, and about the Palomino Cab Company. "And I’ve already erased his memory of the fire."

  He sighed. "We'll look into that later." He gave me a pat on t-he shoulders. "You sure you're up for this? It's the worst one yet."

  "Oh?" I couldn't recall a time when the boss tried to warn me off a case.

  Randy cleared his throat. "One first responder barely made it to the bathroom before he threw up."

  I shrugged. We were just gathering pictures and samples to give to Oshaun for analysis. It wouldn't take long. "Let's get this over with."

  This time I did push past the boss.

  "Ivory, wait—"

  But I didn't listen. I wanted to get in, get out, and go home. I got one step past the door frame when I stopped. Magnusson had said this one was different. I should have listened.

  Later, I would have nightmares in which I would recall the way her golden hair spilled across the pillow, and how her brown eyes stared at the ceiling. I would see the lavender sheets still clutched in her hands.

  But just at that moment, I could barely focus past the coloured dots quickly blurring my vision. Heat washed down my spine. Bile rose up my throat. My feet, of their own volition, took me to the ensuite. Or maybe it was Randy who got me there. Either way, I was the second person to spill my DNA at the crime scene. But not because of the gruesome nature of the crime. And not because Hammond had stopped burning off her body parts at the hips—her entire upper half remained untouched. She wore only a red silk bra.